4i HUMBLE CREATURES. 



another, who may appear to you an imaginative enthu- 

 siastj let us ask you to try the experiment yourself, 

 and form your own opinion on the subject. 



The next time you go out on your morning or 

 evening ramblCj if you chance to see a worm in your 

 path, do not kick it aside, nor step over it ; but take 

 it from the ground, and lay it on the palm of your 

 hand ; and as it tries to crawl away you will experi- 

 ence a slight sensation of roughness on your skin. 

 If you take a pocket-lens, and examine carefully the 

 under side of the worm's body, you will perceive 

 several rows of fine sharp hooks, extending from one 

 end to the other, each annulated division (for the 

 worm's body is, as you doubtless know, composed of 

 rings) being furnished with four pairs of these hooks, 

 which are situated upon small protuberances on the 

 creature's skin. These minute hooks cause the rough 

 sensation alluded to ; and that portion of the body 

 on which they are placed corresponds to the abdomen 

 of the higher animals, the hooks themselves being 

 nothing more nor less than rudimentary feet to aid 

 the worm in its progress (PI. II. fig. 3). 



It has perhaps never occurred to you to inquire 

 how it is, when you endeavour to draw a worm forth 

 from the earth, that it can offer such resistance to 

 your efforts, as almost to necessitate your tearing it 

 in two before you can extract it, and why, as soon as 

 you relax your hold, it disappears with such rapidity 

 under the soil. These hooks are the cause ; they are 

 retractile at the will of the animal, and operate so as 



