worms. 259 



I am now going to show yon some other examples of 

 travelling machinery in an humble and despised, but far 

 from uninteresting, class of animals, — the Worms. Here 

 is an Earth-worm upon the garden-border. With what 

 rapidity it winds along, and now it pokes its sharp 

 nose into the ground, and now it has disappeared ! If 

 your eye could follow it, you would see that it makes its 

 way through the compact earth not less easily nor less 

 rapidly than it wound along the surface. If you take it 

 into your hand, you perceive no feet, wings, fins, or limbs 

 of any kind ; only this long cylinder of soft flesh, divided 

 into numerous successive rings, and tapering to each ex- 

 tremity. The very snout which you saw enter so easily 

 into the substance of the soil, is no hard bony point, but 

 formed of the same soft yielding flesh as the other parts. 

 And yet with no other implement does the lithe worm 

 penetrate whithersoever it will through the ground. How 

 does it effect this ? 



The fineness of the point to which the muzzle can be 

 drawn is the first essential. This can be so attenuated 

 that the grains of adherent soil can readily be separated 

 by it, when its action becomes that of the wedge. The 

 body being drawn into the crevice thus made, the particles 

 are separated still farther. Now another provision comes 

 in ; the whole surface of the skin secretes and throws off a 

 quantity of tenacious mucus or slime, as you will imme- 

 diately perceive if you handle the Worm ; this has the 

 double effect of causing the pressed particles of soil to ad- 

 here together, and then to form a cylindrical wall, of which 

 they are the bricks, and the slime the mortar ; and also of 

 greasing, as it were, the whole interior of the burrow or 

 passage thus made, so that the Worm can travel to and 

 fro in it without impediment ; while the fact that the 

 slime is continually poured forth afresh prevents the least 

 atom of earth from adhering to its body. This you have 

 doubtless observed, or may observe in a moment, if you 



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