428 



NATURE STUDY AND LIFE 



It is a common belief that earthworms " rain down." 

 What do the children think about it ? The evidence that 

 is popularly assumed to prove this consists in finding 

 worms in rain-water barrels or gutters. Let the class 

 observe how easily a worm can ascend a vertical surface, 

 even a pane of glass, and then decide whether the worms 



"rain down" or " rain 

 up." 



Hair Worms. These 

 strange creatures resem- 

 ble animated hairs so 

 closely that it is not 

 strange that the myth 

 should arise as to their 

 origin from hairs left 

 in the water. If the 

 children insist upon this 

 belief as strongly as 

 some grown people do, 

 it might be well to let 

 them put some hairs in 

 water and see if they 

 turn into hair worms. 

 But the true life story 

 of hair worms is more 



wonderful than the fiction. They are usually found in 

 one of two places, in roadside or meadow pools after a 

 rain, in the spring and summer; in the bodies of insects, 

 late in the summer and fall. In the insect's body they 

 are long white threads. I have found one in a katydid, 

 more than twenty-two inches long. In the pools they are 



FIG. 173. THREE HAIR WORMS REMOVED 



FROM A GRASSHOPPER 

 a, a specimen 22^ in. long, from a katydid. 



