302 OBSERVATIONS ON WORMS. 



CLAY-WORM. 



March 20, 1826. A MAN brought me to-day what 

 he called a clay-worm, which he threw up with his 

 spade while digging. It was rather more than ten 

 inches in length ; filiform, ahout the thickness of a 

 horse-hair ; and white, inclining to yellowish ; slightly 

 attenuated towards the tail. The head was obtusely 

 conical. Scarcely any trace of a mouth could be dis- 

 cerned, except under a very high magnifier. Whether 



English readers to a fact said to have been observed by a foreign 

 naturalist, which I have never noticed myself, but which it would 

 be very interesting to have confirmed by the observations of 

 others. It respects the phosphorescence of a certain species of 

 earth-worm during the act of coupling. The following passage is 

 translated from a French Journal, in which the fact is recorded. 



"A great number of small phosphorescent animals were noticed, 

 two or three years back, in a garden at Toulouse, during a very 

 warm summer's evening. MM. Saget and Moquin-Tandon, hav- 

 ing carefully examined them, recognized them as positively 

 belonging to the genus Lumbricus. They were from forty to fifty 

 millimetres* in length, or thereabouts. The light they emitted 

 appeared bluish, and much resembled that of iron at a white 

 heat. When one of these worms was crushed with the foot, the 

 light spread itself on the ground ; it could be made to leave also 

 a long luminous track, as if one had rubbed the ground with a 

 piece of phosphorus. Each of these Lumbrici shewed a clitellum 

 well developed, which proves that the individuals observed were 

 adult, and in the act of coupling. M. Moquin-Tandon observed 

 that the luminosity resided in the substance of the c/iteltum, and 

 that this property ceased to exist immediately after coupling." 

 rinstitut, torn. viii. (1840) p. 381. 



* Equalling rather more than an inch and a half to two inches, 

 English measure. 



