WORMS. 205 



LETTER LXXVII. 

 TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, May 20, 1777. 



DEAR SIR, Lands that are subject to frequent inundations, 

 are always poor ; and, probably, the reason may be, because 

 the worms are drowned. The most insignificant insects and 

 reptiles are of much more consequence, and have much more 

 influence in the economy of Nature, than the incurious are 

 aware of ; and are mighty in their effect, from their minuteness, 

 which renders them less an object of attention ; and from their 

 numbers and fecundity. * Earth-worms, though in appearance 

 a small and despicable link in the chain of Nature, yet, if 

 lost, would make a lamentable chasm. For to say nothing of 

 half the birds, and some quadrupeds, which are almost entirely 

 supported by them, worms seem to be the great promoters of 

 vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by 

 boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it 

 pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws 

 and stalks of leaves into it ; and, most of all, by throwing up 

 such infinite numbers of lumps of earth, called worm-casts, 



* The earth-worm has been long considered a viviparous animal, but 

 M. Leon Dufour seems to have determined that it is oviparous. The 

 eggs are of a very peculiar structure, being long, tapering, and terminated 

 at each end by a pencil of fringed membranaceous substance. They have 

 more the appearance, indeed, of a chrysalis or cocoon than of an egg ; 

 but their pulp, c. prove them to be true eggs. The worms, when 

 hatched, are very agile, and, when disturbed, will sometimes retreat for 

 safety within the shell, which they have just quitted, or instinctively dig 

 into the clay. 



Reaumur computes, though from what data it is difficult to conjecture, 

 that the number of worms lodged in the bosom of the earth exceeds that 

 of the grains of all kinds of corn collected by man. 



A narrative in the Times newspaper of the disinterment of the body 

 of the patriot Hampden, in Hampden Church, in July, 1828, contains 

 some curious facts respecting the worm of corruption. Hampden was 

 interred in June, 1643. It is stated in the Times, that " the skull was 

 in some places perfectly bare, whilst in others the skin remained nearly 

 entire, upon which we discovered a number of maggots, [and small red 

 worms, feeding with great activity. This was the only spot where any 

 symptoms of life were apparent, as if the brain contained a vital principle 

 within it which engendered its own destruction ; otherwise, how can we 

 account, after a lapse of nearly two centuries, for finding living creatures 

 preying upon the seat of intellect, when they were nowhere else to be 

 found in no other part of the body? " ED. 



