CHAPTER VII 



THE DWELLERS IN THE SOIL 



Apparatus required. 



Garden soil. Six bottles and corks [1]. Twelve 

 Erlenmeyer JlaskSy 60 cc capacity [2]. Cotton wool. 

 Milk {about half a pint). Leaf gelatine. Soil baked 

 in an oven. Six saucers [3]. The apparatus in 

 Fig. 28 {two lots). Wash bottle containing lime water 

 {Fig. 27, also p. 19). 



In digging a garden a number of little animals are 

 found, such as earthworms, beetles, ants, centipedes, 

 millipedes and others. There are also some very curious 

 forms of vegetable life. By carefully looking about it 

 is not difficult to find patches of soil covered with 

 a greenish slimy growth; they are found best under 

 bushes where the soil is not disturbed, or else where 

 the soil has been pressed down by a footmark and not 

 touched since. Any good soil left undisturbed for a 

 time shows this growth. 



Put some fresh moist garden soil into a bottle 

 and cork it up tightly so that it keeps moist Write 

 the date on the bottle and then leave it in the light 

 where you can easily see it After a time — sometimes 

 a long, sometimes a shorter time — the soil becomes 

 covered with a slimy growth, greenish in colour, mingled 

 here and there with reddish brown. The longer the 



