GARDEN FOES AND GARDEN FRIENDS 139 



at work is a different story, since during the day they remain 

 quite listless. Darkness is the season for their industry. 

 Hunting earthworms with a lantern may sound tame sport, but 

 it is, on the contrary, curiously exciting. If one approaches 

 the worms stealthily, they are seen lying stretched along the 

 moist surface halfway out of their holes. The hind end still 

 clings to the burrow, while the mouth is sucking and tug- 

 ging toward the hole scraps of leaves and grass. The ease 

 with which its wonderful elastic body is able, by expanding and 

 contracting, to accomplish such feats offers one of the most 

 striking lessons in animal mechanism. The reaction of the 

 worm when stimulated by the lantern's rays and by human 

 footsteps may also be noticed. All these feats may be watched 

 in the laboratory if the worms are kept in a darkened jar 

 and the curtain raised from time to time. A performance 

 fascinating to children is one where worms are eating tiny 

 bits of filter paper. There are a great many other experi- 

 ments which any one who carries on a vivarium will propose 

 of his own accord. 



Children are not by nature prejudiced against animals like 

 toads and earthworms, except that any unusual forms or move- 

 ments are at first disconcerting ; but the example set by their 

 elders, it must be confessed, is not always reassuring. The 

 perfect harmony which earthworms display, through genera- 

 tions of adaptation to their surroundings, and the survival 

 of the ones best equipped for the struggle of life, is an inex- 

 haustible source of interest and admiration, although every- 

 thing depends, as has been said, upon the point of view. The 

 easy adjustment of children to a new point of view may be 

 illustrated by a little incident. 



A small girl of ten had shown a strong antipathy to some 

 earthworms which she found lying in the garden path. She 

 was so disturbed that her work was stopped, her pleasure 



