NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 115 



of worms ; the former because they render their walks 

 unsightly, and make them much work : and the latter 

 because, as they think, worms eat their green corn. But 

 these men would find that the earth without worms would 

 soon become cold, hard-bound, and void of fermentation, 

 and consequently steril ; and, besides, in favour of worms, 

 it should be hinted that green corn, plants, and flowers, are 

 not so much injured by them as by many species of coleop- 

 tera (scarabs), and tipulce (long-legs) in their larva, or grub- 

 state ; and by unnoticed myriads of small shell-less snails, 

 called slugs, which silently and imperceptibly make amaz- 

 ing havoc in the field and garden. 1 



These hints we think proper to throw out in order to 

 set the inquisitive and discerning to work. 



A good monography of worms would afford much 

 entertainment and information at the same time, and 

 would open a large and new field in natural history. 

 Worms work most in the spring ; but by no means lie 

 torpid in the dead months : are out every mild night in the 

 winter, as any person may be convinced that will take the 

 pains to examine his grass-plots with a candle ; are herma- 

 phrodites, and much addicted to venery, and consequently 

 very prolific. 2 I am, &c. 



are kept. In pasture lands, however, they do act mechanically, and their cast- 

 ings or excrement (earth-worm guano) is often very abundant, so much so as to 

 mark the surface. Mr. Darwin applies the offices of worms geologically by their 

 gradually covering the surface of land, and concealing loose stones, &c., which, 

 however, may be also assisted by the decomposition of vegetable matter ; he goes 

 so far as to say, " that every particle of earth in old pasture land has passed 

 through the intestines of worms, and hence that in some instances, the term 

 'animal world* would be more appropriate than 'vegetable world.'" (Proceed. 

 Geol. Soc.) It is remarkable after a flood has covered the low pastures to observe 

 the numbers of birds, crows, thrushes, hens, gulls, that assemble when the water 

 recedes ; the drowned earth-worm is their chief prey." Darwin's celebrated 

 treatise on earth-worms and their effect upon the globe is well known to all 

 naturalists. [R. B. S.] 



1 Farmer Young, of Norton-farm, says, that this spring (1777) about four 

 acres of his wheat in one field was entirely destroyed by slugs > which swarmed on 

 the blades of corn, and devoured it as fast as it sprang. [G. W.] 



2 The importance of the work done by earth-worms, here so prophetically 

 emphasised by Gilbert White, was afterwards made the subject of study by Charles 



