Field-Laborers ^j 



any railway cutting, or on the top of any bank, be it chalk 

 or be it sand; and this black earth, or humus, is, to a 

 very large extent, the work of worms. 



In a very loose soil worms can move easily, but gener- 

 ally speaking, as their bodies are soft, and cannot pierce 

 through anything at all hard or close, and as they have 

 nothing but their mouths to work with, they are obliged 

 to eat their way through the ground. No doubt they are 

 fed, to some extent, by the animal or vegetable matter 

 contained in the soil, but their primary object in swallow- 

 ing it does not seem to be food; to swallow it is the only 

 way they have of getting rid of it, and their real object is 

 to make a tube or burrow in which to live. 



The effect produced upon the soil by its passage 

 through their bodies is very marked: it is not only ren- 

 dered extremely fine, but its color is gradually altered, 

 becoming darker and darker, until, after repeated swal- 

 lowing, it is turned almost black. The layer of dark 

 mold which covers our fields is dark just because it is 

 composed of the castings of worms — castings which have 

 passed through their bodies over and over again, times 

 innumerable. 



The worm has no teeth, and its mouth is a mere open- 

 ing, but it has the power of flattening its head and extend- 

 ing it on each side of this opening so as to form two lips, 

 with which it is able to grasp leaves and other things firmly 

 enough to drag them into its burrow. Sometimes, how- 

 ever, it seems to vary its manner of proceeding, and 

 instead of grasping the object it wishes to move, it presses 

 its mouth upon it until it adheres firmly by mere suction. 



Worms are omnivorous : they will eat anything eatable, 

 and will feed daintily upon half-decayed flowers and almost 



