56 The Great World's Farm 



more than the traditional nine Hves, and endowed with a 

 wonderful power of adapting itself to the most diverse and 

 most adverse circumstances. Bodily injury affects it but 

 little, so far as life is concerned. One worm is said to 

 have been beheaded eight times in succession, and to have 

 perseveringly grown a new head each time; another was 

 cut into fourteen pieces, thirteen of which became perfect 

 worms, while only one died. 



Earthworms closely similar in appearance to those 

 which we know in England are found in soils of the most 

 various kinds and in almost all parts of the world. Moist- 

 ure, however, they cannot do without, and hence, while 

 they avoid dry sand and heaths, they frequent paved yards 

 near houses in large numbers. 



On the mountains of North Wales and on the Alps 

 they are rare, owing perhaps to the lack of sufficient depth 

 in which to make their winter burrows; but they are found 

 in Scotland on hills fifteen hundred feet above the sea; 

 near Turin, at a height of two thousand or three thousand 

 feet; on the Nilgiri Mountains of South India, and on the 

 Himalayas. They have, indeed, an enormous range, 

 occurring in the most isolated islands, abounding in Ice- 

 land, and found in the West Indies, St. Helena, Mada- 

 gascar, New Caledonia, Tahiti, Kerguelen's Land, and 

 the Falkland Islands, though how they reached these is at 

 present a mystery, since sea water is absolutely fatal to 

 them. 



Almost the whole surface of every moderately damp 

 country is covered with a layer of fine, dark, vegetable 

 mold; it is only a few inches thick at most, from four 

 or five to perhaps twelve inches, but no matter what the 

 nature of the soil beneath, there it is. One may see it in 



