28 HARNESSING THE EARTHWORM 



stone too large to swallow is encountered, the worm eats its way 

 around, giving the surface a chemical treatment in passing and 

 possibly sucking off a few choice morsels from the weathered 

 surface. If small enough, the particle is swallowed, to serve as 

 a millstone in the gizzard while being subjected to the solvent 

 action of acids and alkalies so abundantly provided in the digestive 

 secretions. If a piece of tough cellulose, such as dry leaf stem, 

 twig, or bit of wood, is met with, it may be coated with a saliva- 

 like secretion and left to soften (perhaps for days or weeks), 

 later to resume its journey of disintegration and digestion through 

 the tubular intestinal mill. Figuratively speaking, the worm says 

 "the world is my oyster," and proceeds literally to swallow 

 it with everything it may contain. 



To be more specific, in action the earthworm employs the 

 ^principle of the hydraulic drill, softening the earth in front of it, 

 if necessary, with its secretions and sucking it into its mouth. 

 Thus, blindly, the worm eats its dark way through the densest 

 earth, including tough, compact adobe and clay soils riddling and 

 honeycombing the soil to a depth of ten feet or more with aerat- 

 ing tunnels or burrows, as it swallows the earth with all that it 

 contains dead roots, vegetable and animal remains, bacteria, the 

 minute and microscopic vegetable life of the soil, and mineral 

 elements. Being truly a blind dweller of the dark, highly sen- 

 sitive to light, the earthworm is a nocturnal animal, coming to 

 the surface at night to feed on organic litter. By day it pushes 

 slow tunneling operations below the surface, the softened and 

 almost liquified material finding its way into the storage space 

 of the worm's crop. 



Paul Griswold Howes, Curator of Natural History at the 

 Bruce Museum of Natural History, gives a concise statement of 

 the feeding habits of worms in his wonderfully interesting book, 

 Backyard Exploration, as follows: 



Worms are the most numerous at the surface of the ground 

 at night . . . They come to the surface to feed, as they are truly 

 nocturnal animals . . . They do actually consume large quantities 



