ORDER ANNULATA APODA. 105 



scattered by rains, they circulate again in the plants of 

 the soil, 



Death still producing life. 



" Thus eminently serviceable as the Worm is, it yet 

 becomes the prey of various orders of the animal crea- 

 tion, and perhaps is a solitary example of an individual 

 race being subjected to universal destruction. The very 

 emmet seizes it when disabled, and bears it away as its 

 prize. It constitutes throughout the year the food of 

 many birds ; fishes devour it greedily ; the hedgehog 

 eats it ; the mole pursues it unceasingly in the pastures, 

 along the moist bottoms of ditches, and burrows after it 

 through the banks of hedges, to which it retires in dry 

 seasons. Secured as the Worm appears to be by its 

 residence in the earth, from the capture of creatures 

 inhabiting a different element, yet many aquatic animals 

 seem well acquainted with it, and prey on it as a natural 

 food, whenever it falls in their way : frogs eat it, and 

 even the great water-beetle I have known to seize it, 

 when the bait of the angler, and it has been drawn up 

 by the hook. Yet notwithstanding this prodigious 

 destruction of the animal, its increase is fully commen- 

 surate to its consumption, as if ordained the appointed 

 food of all. 



" Worms, generally speaking, are tender creatures, 

 and water remaining over their haunts for a few days, 

 drowns them. They easily become frozen, when a 

 mortification commences at some part, which gradually 

 consumes the whole substance, and we find them on 

 the surface a mass of jelly. Their retiring deeper into 

 the soil is no bad indication of approaching cold weather; 

 but no sooner is the frost out of the ground, than they 

 approach the surface. 



H 



