6o 



Life and Immortality. 





COMMON EARTH-WORMS 

 Out on a Foraging Excursion. 



the mouths of their burrows. Flower-peduncles, decayed 

 twigs of trees, bits of paper, feathers, tufts of wool and 

 horse-hair are some of the many things other than leaves 

 that are dragged into their burrows for this purpose. Many 

 hundred leaves of the pine-tree have been found drawn by 

 their bases into burrows. Where fallen leaves are abundant, 

 especially ordinary dicotyledonous leaves, many more than 

 can be used are collected over the mouth of a burrow, so 

 that a small pile of unused leaves is left like a roof over 

 those which have been partly dragged in. A leaf in being 

 dragged a little way into a cylindrical burrow necessarily 

 becomes much folded or crumpled, and when another is 

 drawn in, this is done exteriorly to the first, and so on with 

 succeeding leaves, till finally they all become closely folded 

 and pressed together. Sometimes the mouth of a burrow 



