CH. I] EARTHWORMS AND LEECHES 21 



sparrows and many other small birds will greedily pick 

 up young worms when the chance occurs. Sea-gulls too 

 at certain seasons will follow the plough and eat such 

 worms as they may find exposed. It is unnecessary to 

 enumerate all the species of worm -eating birds ; at one 

 period of the year or another a large number of our native 

 birds have recourse to a diet of worms. 



Below the surface too the worm is not free from attack, 

 being pursued by the mole, one of the most voracious 

 feeders known ; by the small shell-bearing slug Testacella 

 (occasionally too by the large black slug Arion ater), by 

 the swift, flat-bodied, red-brown centipede Lithobius, and 

 by the larva of the beetle Steropus madidus, which will 

 " bolt " worms from their burrows as a ferret does rabbits. 



In addition to the mole, other mammals such as shrews 

 and hedgehogs may be regarded as fairly constantly prey- 

 ing upon the worm, while many cold-blooded Vertebrates, 

 such as toads, frogs, and lizards devour them readily. 



Among insects the chief foes are beetles of the genus 

 Ocypus, commonly known as " Devil's Coach-horses," whose 

 normal food is for the most part composed of worms. Ants 

 may occasionally be seen attacking a worm, but probably 

 they have in such cases availed themselves of the oppor- 

 tunity afforded by a worm already reduced to comparative 

 helplessness by other circumstances. 



Aquatic worms fall frequent victims, of course, to 

 numerous species of fish, leeches, and turbellarian flat- 

 worms. Certain dipterous flies deposit their eggs in the 

 body of the living worm, and the resulting larvae sooner or 

 later destroy their host. 



In the body-cavity, and in or on the septa, there may 



