234 NATURAL HISTORY 
LETTER XXXV. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
Selborne, May 20, 1777. 
ANDS tliat are subject to frequent inunda- 
tions are always poor ; and probably the rea- 
son may be because the worms are drowned. 
The most insignificant insects and reptiles are 
■^Si^T^E' of much more consequence and have much 
more influence in the economy of Nature than the incurious are 
aware of; and are mighty in their effect, from their minuteness, 
which renders them less an object of attention ; and from their 
numbers and fecundity. Earthworms, though in appearance 
a small and despicable link in the chain of Nature, yet, if lost, 
would make a lamentable chasm » For, to say nothing of half 
the birds, and some quadrupeds which are almost entirely 
supported by them, worms seem to be gTeat promoters of 
vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, 
by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering 
it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants; by drawing 
straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it ; and, most of all, 
by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called 
worm casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure 
for grain and grass. Worms probably provide new soil for 
hills and slopes where the rain washes the earth away ; and 
they affect slopes probably to avoid being flooded. Gar- 
deners and farmers express their detestation of worms ; the 
former because they render their walks unsightly, and make 
them much work ; and the latter because, as they think, 
worms eat their green corn. But these men would find 
that the earth without worms would soon become cold, 
hard-bound, and void of fermentation, and consequently 
sterile; and besides, in favour of worms, it should be hinted 
that green corn, plants, and flowers, are not so much in- 
jured by them as by many species of Coleoptera (scarabs) 
