196 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



which grave historians as well as the poets assert, of exposed 

 children being sometimes nurtured by female wild beasts that 

 probably had lost their young. For it is not one whit more 

 marvellous that Romulus and Remus, in their infant state, should 

 be nursed by a she-wolf, than that a poor little sucking leveret 

 should be fostered and cherished by a bloody grimalkin. 



" viridi foetam Mavortis in antro 



Procubuisse lupam; geminos huic ubera circum 

 Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem 

 Impavidos : illam tereti cervice reflexam 

 Mulcere alteraos .et corpora fiugere lingua." 



LETTER XXXV. To THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



DEAR SIR, Selborne, May 20, 1777. 



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 incurious 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 draw- 

 ing 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 their excrement, is a fine manure 

 for grain and grass. 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. Gardeners and 

 farmers express their detestation of worms ; the former because 

 they render their walks unsightly, and make them much work : 

 and the latter because, as they think, worms eat their green corn. 

 But these men would find that the earth without worms would 

 soon become cold, hard-bound, and void of fermentation ; and 

 consequently steril : and besides, in favour of worms, it should 

 be hinted that green corn, plants, and flowers, are not so much 



