124 FIELD AND FOREST. 



Maine. Of course it is not meant that these zones are strictly divided 

 for every naturalist knows that there are no divisions in nature with 

 absolutely distinct boundaries. The zones overlay, more or less, but 

 the limits are sufficiently well marked in general to indicate tbre e 

 territories, each having its peculiar flora. Doubtless each of these 

 principle zones might be divided into subordinate districts, were it 

 desirable to trace the limits of various plants minutely. A tropical or 

 subtropical flora might be found on the margin of the Gulf of Mexico, 

 and a sub-arctic flora on the Canada line, while intermediate belts of 

 limited areas would be made up of local genera and species. 



We do not propose, however, to pursue the subject any further. 

 Some other botanist of wider knowledge might make of it a very in- 

 teresting study. 



Thomas Morong. 



^Af orms . — Lumbricus terrestris. 



To thrust a worm on a hook and drown the creature, while with a 

 pole in our hand we sit in the sun and blister our nose, may be sport 

 — is good fun of a lazy kind — but to the writhing organism suffoca- 

 ting in the water, the iron literally in its soul, an anguilla nibbling 

 the segments where possibly the nerve is bare, the fun must be of a 

 microscopic character. Everybody likes to go fishing, if he would 

 only confess it, except perhaps the fish and the worms; but, if we are 

 to believe some piscatorial euthusiasts, fish have no feeling in their 

 lips, and as for the worms — they have no sensation of any kind except to 

 rather enjoy being swallowed ! So we are taught to "loop him on," 

 and to ornament the hook with squirming scallops, where the steel barb 

 at every thrust penetrates a nervous ganglion. 



The idea of a worm of any kind is unpleasant to the refined taste, 

 but there is nothing especially repugnant in the appearance of the 

 earth-worm. When a young lady, however, upturns one as she digs 

 her flower bed, ten chances to none she will scream and run away, and 

 dig no more that day; but at the sight of it, her youthful brother has a 

 beatific vision of a boat and a river, the bobbing of a cork — a struggle 

 — the splashing of a broad tail in a leaky skiff; and the man with a 

 microscope, as he passes by, takes it tenderly in the palm of his hand, 



