THE EARTH-WORM. 231 
for the artful to deceive the credulous. A little banded 
snail (helix virgata) is a very common species on most 
of our arid, maritime pastures, and the sheep-downs of 
many inland places. It happened, from some unknown 
cause, that those inhabiting a dry field in an adjoining 
parish were in one season, a few years ago, greatly in- 
creased, so as to become an object of notice to a few, 
then to more, till at length this accumulation was noised 
about as a supernatural event. The field was visited 
by hundreds daily from neighboring villages and distant 
towns. People who could not attend purchased the 
snails at a half-penny each; and there were persons 
who made five shillings a day by the sale of them. As 
this increase of the creature was not certainly to be ac- 
counted for, some had the impudence to assert that they 
had witnessed their fall from the clouds; and many 
declared their belief that some great public or private 
misfortune was indicated by it. The proprietor of the 
field being supposed not to maintain the same senti- 
ments as the commonalty upon a political circumstance, 
which at that moment greatly agitated the country, it 
was considered as a manifestation of heavenly dis- 
pleasure, precursive of malady, misfortune, death. 
However, autumn came, these snails retired to their 
holes in the banks, and the worthy man lived on, — and 
long may he live, esteemed and respected by all, un- 
scathed by snails or misfortunes. 
Little obnoxious to injury as this garden snail appears 
to be, there is another creature, and that a very impor- 
tant one in the operations of nature, that is surrounded 
by dangers, harassed, pursued unceasingly, and becomes 
the prey of all : the common earth-worm (lumbricus ter- 
restris). This animal, destined to be the natural manu- 
rer of the soil, and the ready indicator of an improved 
staple, consumes on the surface of the ground, where 
they soon would be injurious, the softer parts of decayed 
vegetable matters, and conveys into the soil the more 
woody fibres, where they moulder, and become reduced 
to a simple nutriment, fitting for living vegetation. The 
parts consumed by them are soon returned to the sur- 
