346 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



surface thrusting half the length of his long body 

 straight up and looking like the round polished 

 stem of some species of squill or lily springing 

 miraculously from the earth. Worms, I found, are 

 extraordinarily sensitive to earth vibration : thus 

 when one walks upon or strikes the ground with a 

 stick, they go deeper down ; but when the vibra- 

 tions come from beneath or from the earth around 

 them, they rush to the surface to escape from a 

 subterranean enemy pursuing them in their own 

 element. On the lawn I never succeeded in making 

 the worms rush up to the surface by striking a 

 spade or fork into the soil ; and when I dug up a 

 number of worms from the lawn and compared 

 them with others from the soil outside, I found a 

 great difference in them. The lawn worms were 

 much smaller and were not nearly so vigorous in 

 their movements as the others. The wonder was 

 that worms should be found living in such numbers 

 in the lawn soil in these somewhat unnatural 

 conditions, when just outside the lawn there was 

 a soil easier to penetrate and abundance of decaying 

 leaves for them to feed on. 



These incidental observations on earthworms in 

 their relation to lawns caused me to regret that I 

 had not made a better use of my opportunities of 

 studying these creatures on former occasions, as 

 it now appeared to me that much yet remains to 

 be discovered anent their habits and effect on the 

 soil and vegetation. My knowledge of them was 

 little more than that of the ordinary person, and 



