1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



483 



can be derived, except from without the animal. 

 A post, tree or beam is just as indispensable to 

 the support of a horse as to the support of a man 

 intent on suicide. A horse can't hang himself up in 

 the air by the terrets on his back, any more than a 

 man can by pulling upwards at his neck-handker- 

 chief. 



The check rein should be abolished. It wastes 

 motive power. Its use is unhealthy, for it dis- 

 turbs the otherwise naturally and equally distri- 

 buted vital forces. It shortens the life of the 

 horse. It diminishes his speed, and lessens the 

 free and quick action so essential to the animal's 

 safety and that of his driver. 



Brethren of the press, let us emancipate the 

 horse from the British check rein. — Buffalo Bern. 



Remarks. — So say we. It is an instrument of 

 torture. How would a man wheel a load up hill, 

 or even on level ground, with a strap round his 

 forehead and tied down under his heels ! In 

 drawing a load, the horse needs to throw the 

 weight of his body forward, and in dropping the 

 head it brings a considerable portion of his weight 

 on a line with the load behind him, if he is load- 

 ed properly, — and then he is drawing his load at 

 a longer angle than he otherwise would. 



THE HABITS OF THE EAE.TH-"WOKM. 



Being somewhat confined to the house, I shall 

 endeavor to give an account of a Vf-ell known an- 

 imal. Nature exhibits wonders that surpass cred- 

 ulity, and yet many marvellous things are be- 

 lieved which are totally unfounded in fact. Among 

 the rest, it is said of the subject of my discourse, 

 (popularly termed the Earth- Worm,) that if it be 

 cut in pieces, each piece will turn out a complete 

 worm. This is not true any more than to say 

 that the claw of a lobster, taken off, will produce 

 another lobster. The lobster, up to a certain age, 

 will indeed put forth another claw, and the ex- 

 cised claw will, for a long time, exhibit muscular 

 irritability. Human beings, if history lies not, 

 exhibit in their members the same muscular ir- 

 ritability after death, as Charlotte Corday was 

 said to blush and frown when her head was in 

 the hand of the executioner, who slapped the 

 face. If a worm be cut through, in a particular 

 part of his body, neither part can be made to sur- 

 vive ; but if the tail part, for a considerable length, 

 be cut off, that will exhibit muscular irritability 

 for a long time, but ultimately perishes, while 

 the head part will have its wound healed, and 

 seems to get on very well without the other part. 

 But, still, many things can be related of worms 

 sufficiently wonderful, and we shall endeavor to 

 prove that he has really a high organization. In 

 fact, he is the most thorough ventilator known in 

 nature, and requires constant supplies of food, 

 water, and, above all, fresh air. We will relate 

 how we became familiar with the habits of worms, 

 BO that some curious investigator may pursue 

 these researches, and verify or disprove our con- 

 jectures. Being fond of fishing, and on some days 

 being able to obtain any amount of worms, while 

 on an emergency we often failed to obtain a suf- 

 ficient supply, and being advised by old fisher- 

 men to put up a large supply of worms in meal. 



as they said, to purge them of the grit in their 

 bodies, rendering them more palatable to the fish, 

 we began to speculate on the subject. We con- 

 cluded that they only swallowed grit on the prin- 

 ciple, that a hungry boy would swallow cherry 

 and grape stones, not that he liked them, but was 

 unwilling to take time to separate pulp from seed, 

 and so the worm, if he could get at meal or flesh 

 unmixed with grit, would do so. So we obtained 

 a box, pierced the bottom with holes, so small 

 that the worms could not escape, but that water 

 could drain out, filled up the box with a kind of 

 sandy clay, embedded a brick on top of the clay, 

 put in a handful of worms and kept them sup- 

 plied with meal, blood or flesh sprinkled on top 

 of the clay, and put the whole in a place secure 

 from all kinds of animals, keeping a good supply 

 of water in the box. The worms soon seemed at 

 home in their new domicile, and honeycombed the 

 clay soon with their galleries. The rapid disap- 

 pearance of their food testified to their appetites, 

 and they evidently used a great deal of water. 

 They soon became too mucli our pets to think of 

 devoting them to fish, and the following observa- 

 tions we made on their habits. Whether the 

 British worm is like our earth worm, we know 

 not. We have never seen them accurately de- 

 lineated in print, and we are such an indifi"erent 

 draftsman, that we cannot begin to draw one ac- 

 curately. 



Being a very poor naturalist, we cannot des- 

 cribe fully the paris of such delicate organs, as 

 stomach, spiracles, organs of generation, ovaries, 

 &c. We have often seen worms in such close 

 contact, that we have concluded that impregna- 

 tion takes place by a kind of pressing of the or- 

 gans of generation lying in a sack under the 

 stomach of the worm, and the semen of the male is 

 thus ejected upon the ovaries of the female, mouth 

 to mouth. However this matter takes place, the 

 mother worm incorporates a jelly-like substance 

 with earth, and in this deposites the spawn which 

 comes out alive. So abundant are these spawn 

 in some places, that hogs will eat the earth, and 

 probably that is the kind of earth which certain 

 tribes of savages are said to devour. The young 

 worms soon form innumerable galleries in this 

 earth, almost invisible to the naked eye, feeding 

 upon the jelly, until large enough to provide for 

 themselves. Each worm has a system of galler- 

 ies for ventilation, and when near the surface of 

 the earth, probably to avoid the effects of evapo- 

 ration, they hide under a stone, brick, log, or any 

 thing else partially embedded in the gi-ound, with 

 several galleries running outside of them to the 

 air. How far they extend we know not, probably 

 to running water, as we have seen worms thrown 

 out near the bottom of a deep well. The walls 

 of the galleries are cemented with a kind of glue 

 from their bodies, so as to be air-tight, but not 

 water tight. They are not exactly cylindrical, 

 but are full of smooth cavities, so that the worm 

 can fill them by his swelling out his body, and 

 thus pull himself along by muscular power. No 

 one can form an idea of the swiftness of a worm, 

 under ground, by seeing him crawl on the earth, 

 for he has not such cavities on the surface, as in 

 his galleries, to fill up with his body and thus af- 

 ford him a purchase by which to pull himself 

 along. When he requires ventilation, he first 

 rises to the surface of the earth to see that all his 



