296 'The Natural History of Se I borne 



hills and slopes where the rain washes the earth away; and 

 they affect slopes, probably to avoid being flooded. 1 Gardeners 

 and farmers express their detestation of worms ; the former 

 because they render their walks unsightly, and make them 

 much work ; and the latter because, as they think, worms eat 

 their green corn. But these men would find that the earth 

 without worms would soon become cold, hard-bound, and 

 void of fermentation, and consequently sterile ; and, besides, 

 in favour of worms, it should be hinted that green corn, 

 plants, and flowers, are not so much injured by them as by 

 many species of cokoptera (scarabs), and tipulce (long-legs) in 

 their larva, or grub-state ; and by unnoticed myriads of small 

 shell-less snails, called slugs, which silently and imperceptibly 

 make amazing havoc in the field and garden.* 



These hints we think proper to throw out in order to set 

 the inquisitive and discerning to work. 



A good monography of worms would afford much enter- 

 tainment and information at the same time, and would open 

 a large and new field in natural history. 2 Worms work most 

 in the spring ; but by no means lie torpid in the dead months : 

 are out every mild night in the winter, as any person may be 

 convinced that will take the pains to examine his grass-plots 

 with a candle; are hermaphrodites, and much addicted to 

 venery, and consequently very prolific. I am, &c. 



* Farmer Young, of Norton Farm, says, that this spring (1777) about 

 lour acres of his wheat in one field was entirely destroyed by slugs, which 

 swarmed on the blades of corn, and devoured it as fast as it sprang. 



1 This very interesting passage gives in brief, but without any full 

 detail of experiments or observations, the main principles afterwards so 

 fully worked out by Darwin in his wonderful treatise on Vegetable Mould 

 and Earthworms. Oddly enough, Darwin, by a rare slip of memory in so 

 candid and accurate a writer, does not allude in his treatise to this passage, 

 from which he must almost certainly have derived the first impetus towards 

 his long and patient investigation of the subject. ED. ' 2 The " mono- 

 graphy here desired has since been amply supplied by Darwin. ED. 



