Common 



bafr 



LETTER XXXV. 



'To the same. 



SELBORNE, May 20(6, 1777. 



EAR SIR, Lands that are subject to frequent 

 inundations are always poor ; and probably the 

 reason may be because the worms are drowned. 

 The most insignificant insects and reptiles are of 

 much more consequence, and have much more 

 influence in the economy of Nature, than the in- 

 curious are aware of; and are mighty in their 

 effect, from their minuteness, which renders them less an object of 

 attention : and from their numbers and fecundity. Earth-worms, 

 though in appearance a small and despicable link in the chain of 

 Nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable chasm. For to say 

 nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds which are almost 

 entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the great promoters 

 of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by 

 boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious 

 to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and stalks of 

 leaves and twigs into it ; and, most of all, by throwing up such 

 infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-casts, which, being 



