234 NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XXXV. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTOX. 



SELBORXE, May 20, 1777. 



AN.DS that are subject to frequent inunda- 

 tions are always poor ; and probably the rea- 

 son 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. Earthworms, 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 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 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. Gar- 

 deners 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 

 sterile; and besides, in favour of worms, it should be hinted 

 that green corn, plants, and flowers, are not so much in- 

 jured by them as by many species of Coleoptera (scarabs) 



