206 WORMS. 



which, being their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and 

 grass. Worms probably provide new soil for hills and slopes 

 where the rain washes the earth away ; and they affect slopes, 

 probably, to avoid being flooded. Gardeners and farmers 

 express their detestation 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 coleoptera 

 (scarabs) and tipuloe (long-legs,) in their larva or grub state ; 

 and by unnoticed myriads of small shell-less snails, called 

 slugs, which silently and imperceptibly make amazing havoc 

 in the field and garden. * 



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 enter- 

 tainment, 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 hermaphrodites, and much addicted to 

 venery, and consequently very Drolific. 



LETTER LXXVIII. 



TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, November 22, 1777. 



DEAR SIR, You cannot but remember, that the twenty- 

 sixth and twenty-seventh of last March were very hot days ; 

 so sultry, that every body complained, and were restless under 

 those sensations to which they had not been reconciled by 

 gradual approaches. 



The sudden summer-like heat was attended by many 

 summer coincidences ; for, on those two days, the thermometer 

 rose to sixty-six in the shade ; many species of insects revived 



* Farmer Young, of Norton-farm, says, that this spring, 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. 



