196 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
which grave historians as well as the poets assert, of exposed 
children being sometimes nurtured by female wild beasts that 
probably had lost their young. For it is not one whit more 
marvellous that Romulus and Remus, in their infant state, should 
be nursed by a sh£-wolf, than that a poor little sucking leveret 
should be fostered and cherished by a bloody grimalkin. 
" viridi foetam Mavortis in antro 
Procubuisse lupam; geminos huic ubera circum 
Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem 
Impavidos : illam tereti cervice reflexam 
Mulcere alternos -et corpora fiiigere lingua." 
LETTER XXXV. To the Hon. DAINES BARRINGl^ON. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, May 20, 1777. 
Lands that are subject to frequent inundations are always poor; 
and probably the reason may be because the worms are drowned. 
The most insignificant insects and reptiles are 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. Earth- 
worms, 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 the 
great 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 draw- 
ing 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. Gardeners 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 steril : and besides, in favour of worms, it should 
be hinted that green corn, plants, and flowers, are not so much 
