152 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



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 seems to be the great promoters of vegetatioa, 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 and twigs into it ; and, 

 most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth 

 called worm-casts, 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 detesta- 

 tion 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 

 tipuloR (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, t 



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 entertainment 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 prolific. I am, &c. 



* We scarcely agree with White's proposition here ; grass lands are very much 

 benefited by frequent inundations. That worms are great fertilisers there 

 can be no doubt, but at the same time in all cases they are not bene- 

 ficial, as for instance in flower-pots or boxes where plants are kept. In pasture 

 lands, however, they do act mechanically, and their castings or excrement (earth- 

 worm guano), is often very abundant, so much so as to mark the surface. 

 Mr. Darwin applies the offices of worms geologically by their gradxially covering 

 the surface of land, and concealing loose stones, <fec., which, however, may be 

 also assisted by the decomposition of vegetable matter ; he goes so far as to say, 

 " that every particle of earth in old pasture land has passed through the intestines 

 of worms, and hence that in some instances, the term 'animal world,' would be 

 more appropriate than 'vegetable world.'" (Proceed. Geol. Soc.) It is remarkable 

 after a flood has covered the low pastures to observe the numbers of birds, 

 crows, thrushes, herons, gulls, that assemble when the water recedes ; the drowned 

 earth-worm is their chief prey. 



t Farmer Y 

 cres of his wt 

 the blades of corn, and devoured it as fast as it sprang. 



rmer Young, of Norton Farm, says, that this spring (1777) about four 

 acres of his wheat in one field was entirely destroyed by slugs, which swarmed on 



