162 WEIGHT OF EAKTH Chap. IIL 



Weight of the Castings accumulated at the mouth 

 OF A SINGLE BuRROW — Continued. 



Ounces. 

 (6.) The heaviest of the above twelve castings .. 1'76 

 (7.) Lower Bengal. — Average weight of 22 castings,! 



collected by Mr. J. Scott, and stated by him to have! 1*24 

 been thrown up in the course of one or two nights ) 

 (8.) The heaviest of the above 22 castings ,. .. 2*09 



(9.) Nilgiri Mountains, S. India ; average weight of'j 



the 5 largest castings collected by Dr. King. They I o . -. - 

 had been exposed to the rain of the last monsoon, j 

 and must have lost some weight .. .. ..) 



(10.) The heaviest of the above 5 castings .. .. 4-34 



In this table we see that castings which had 

 been ejected at the mouth of the same burrow, 

 and which in most cases appeared fresh and 

 always retained their vermiform configuration, 

 generally exceeded an ounce in weight after 

 being dried, and sometimes nearly equalled a 

 quarter of a pound. On the Nilgiri moun- 

 tains one casting even exceeded this latter 

 weight. The largest castings in England 

 were found on extremely poor pasture-land; 

 and these, as far as I have seen, are generally 

 larger than those on land producing a rich 

 vegetation. It would appear that worms 

 have to swallow a greater amount of earth 

 on poor than on rich land, in order to obtain 

 sufficient nutriment. 



With respect to the tower-like castings 



