THE EARTH-WORM. 231 



for the artful to deceive the credulous. A little banded 

 snail (helix virgata) is a very common species on most 

 of our arid, maritime pastures, arid the sheep-downs of 

 many inland places. It happened, from some unknown 

 cause, that those .inhabiting a dry field in an adjoining 

 parish were in one season, a few years ago, greatly in- 

 creased, so as to become an object of notice to a few, 

 then to more, till at length this accumulation was noised 

 about as a supernatural event. The field was visited 

 by hundreds daily from neighboring villages and distant 

 towns. People who could not attend purchased the 

 snails at a half-penny each; and there were persons 

 who made five shillings a day by the sale of them. As 

 this increase of the creature was not certainly to be ac- 

 counted for, some had the impudence to assert that they 

 had witnessed their fall from the clouds; and many 

 declared their belief that some great public or private 

 misfortune was indicated by it. The proprietor of the 

 field being supposed not to maintain the same senti- 

 ments as the commonalty upon a political circumstance, 

 which at that moment greatly agitated the country, it 

 was considered as a manifestation of heavenly dis- 

 pleasure, precursive of malady, misfortune, death. 

 However, autumn came, these snails retired to their 

 holes in the banks, and the worthy man lived on, and 

 long may he live, esteemed and respected by all, un- 

 scathed by snails or misfortunes. 



Little obnoxious to injury as this garden snail appears 

 to be, there is another creature, and that a very impor- 

 tant one in the operations of nature, that is surrounded 

 by dangers, harassed, pursued unceasingly, and becomes 

 the prey of all : the common earth-worm (lumbricus ter- 

 restris). This animal, destined to be the natural manu- 

 rer of the soil, and the ready indicator of an improved 

 staple, consumes on the surface of the ground, where 

 they soon would be injurious, the softer parts of decayed 

 vegetable matters, and conveys into the soil the more 

 woody fibres, where they moulder, and become reduced 

 to a simple nutriment, fitting for living vegetation. The 

 parts consumed by them are soon returned to the sur- 



