THE WORM. 407 



change during their existence ; how long their life continues is 

 not well known, but it certainly holds for more than two or 

 three seasons. During the winter, they bury themselves deeper 

 in the earth, and seem, in some measure, to share the general 

 torpidity of the insect tribe. In spring, they revive with the 

 rest of nature, and on those occasions, a moist or dewy evening 

 brings them forth from their retreats, for the universal purpose 

 of continuing their kind. They chiefly live in a light, rich, and 

 fertile soil, moistened by dews or accidental showers, but avoid 

 those places where the water is apt to lie on the surface of the 

 earth, or where the clay is too stiff for their easy progression 

 under ground. 



Helpless as they are formed, yet tliey seem very vigilant in 

 avoiding those animals that chiefly make them their prey ; in 

 particular, the mole, who feeds entirely upon them beneath the 

 surface, and who seldom ventures, from the dimness of its sight, 

 into the open air ; him they avoid, by darting up from the earth 

 the instant they feel the ground move ; and fishermen, who are 

 well acquainted with this, take them in what numbers they 

 choose, by stirring the earth where they expect to find them. 

 They are also driven from their retreats under ground, by pour- 

 ing bitter or acrid water thereon, such as that water in which 

 green walnuts have been steeped, or a ley made of pot-ashes. 



Such is the general outline of the history of these reptiles, 

 which, as it should seem, degrades them no way beneath the 

 rank of other animals of the insect creation : but now we come 

 to a part of their history v. hicli proves the imperfection of their 

 organs, from the easiness with which these little machines may 

 be damaged and repaired again. It is well known in mechanics, 

 that the finest and most complicated instruments are the most 

 easily put out of order, and the most difficultly set right ; the 

 same also obtains in the animal machine. Man, the most com- 

 plicated machine of all others, whose nerves are more numerous, 

 and powers of action more various, is most easily destroyed ; he 

 is seen to die under wounds which a quadruped or a bird could 

 easily survive ; and as we descend gradually to the lower ranks, 

 the ruder the composition, the more difficult it is to disarrange 

 it. Some animals live without their limbs, and often are seen 

 to reproduce them ; some are seen to live without their brain 

 for many weeks together; caterpillars continue to increase and 



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