2 1 6 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



White's, but I am strongly tempted to fancy that 

 it must have been so. Darwin at least remembered 

 White's letter, and quotes it as showing his accuracy 

 on a point of detail often misapprehended. White's 

 keen eye, and his habit of thinking leisurely about 

 what he saw, did in fact enable him to seize on the 

 great secret of worm-economy which Darwin probed 

 with such marvellous and patient persistence. 

 "Earthworms, though in appearance a small and 

 despicable link in the economy of nature, yet if lost, 

 would make a lamentable chasm. Worms probably 

 provide new soil for hills and slopes where the rain 

 washes the earth away; and they affect slopes 

 probably to avoid being flooded." But the whole 

 letter occupies little more than a page. It was not 

 in White's nature to investigate such a subject 

 thoroughly, though it was one which might have 

 been pursued without the aid of modern science. 

 He was a pioneer, and would never for a moment 

 have thought of himself as a great naturalist. But 

 it would be hard to say how many of the discoveries 

 of the nineteenth century may not have sprung from 

 seed which he so freely scattered. To mention one 

 more instance, he was the first naturalist, so far as I 

 know, to notice that "protective mimicry" in the 

 habits of animals the study of which has become so 

 popular and so fruitful at the present day. Just as 

 but lately I observed how some tiny partridges, 



