mth reference to Horticulture. 215 



the eggs, and fit them for the continuance of the species. Spring 

 is the principal season of their amours, and the act is usually 

 consummated during the stillness of night or in the dewy morn : 

 but no season (if we except the depth of winter) nor hour is for- 

 bidden. Whether worms copulate and breed oftener than once 

 in the year is unascertained ; and considerable obscurity hangs 

 over some other circumstances in their generation which we 

 need not dwell upon. They are either ovo-viviparous or ovi- 

 parous, i. e. they do either produce their young already hatched 

 or they lay eggs; but their eggs are so peculiar that doubts have 

 been entertained of their real nature. When digging his garden 

 plot the amateur will now and then turn up, from a considerable 

 depth, a cluster of them, and they deserve to be examined. 

 Those which are laid in early spring are hatched in the months 

 of June and July. When of full size they are as large as a pea, 

 elliptical, with a tubulous aperture at one end and a small point 

 at the opposite pole. The shell, or outer coat, is horny, elastic, 

 smooth, and semitransparent. When immature the egg is 

 roundish and filled with a granular fluid matter, and from this 

 matter an embryo worm is gradually evolved, which, at a late 

 period, the transparency of the shell permits us to see lying 

 coiled up within. This young one (for there is never more than 

 one) escapes at length through the tubulous aperture, when it is 

 rather more than an inch long, and in every respect like its 

 parent, except only that the belt is either unformed or in- 

 conspicuous. When, on the contrary, the em- yv 

 bryo comes hatched from the parental body, it ||1 mh 



is only about four lines in length ; and four months ^ '^Z 



elapse before it attains the size of that born from 

 the egg. They do not reach their full size until 

 after a year; and their life is probably not ex- 

 tended beyond three or four. \n Jig. 33., a is '^'^s- ^3.^ Eggs o/ the 

 an egg before the embryo is visible ; b, the same 

 egg with the embryo coiled up ; and c the embryo worm in the 

 act of escaping. 



There is a popular belief that if the earth-worm is cut into no 

 matter how many pieces by the spade, every portion will in time 

 become again a perfect individual. There is much exaggeration 

 in this statement. The worm certainly recovers from wounds 

 and lacerations of such extent and numbers as proves a very re- 

 markable tenacity of life in it, and a very considerable reproduc- 

 tive power ; and it does indeed reproduce lopped-away segments 

 readily, provided they have been severed from behind the belt. 

 If the body is divided into two halves, the anterior containing 

 the belt will reproduce a new tail, but from the posterior portion 

 a perfect worm is never evolved, although it continues to live 

 for a month or two, and grows in some degree. If the division 



