GARDEN FOES AND GARDEN FRIENDS 139 
at work is a different story, since during the day they remain 
quite listless. Darkness is the season for their industry. 
Hunting earthworms with a lantern may sound tame sport, but 
it is, on the contrary, curiously exciting. If one approaches 
the worms stealthily, they are seen lying stretched along the 
moist surface halfway out of their holes. The hind end still 
clings to the burrow, while the mouth is sucking and tug- 
ging toward the hole scraps of leaves and grass. The ease 
with which its wonderful elastic body is able, by expanding and 
contracting, to accomplish such feats offers one of the most 
striking lessons in animal mechanism. The reaction of the 
worm when stimulated by the lantern’s rays and by human 
footsteps may also be noticed. All these feats may be watched 
in the laboratory if the worms are kept in a darkened jar 
and the curtain raised from time to time. A performance 
fascinating to children is one where worms are eating tiny 
bits of filter paper. There are a great many other experi- 
ments which any one who carries on a vivarium will propose 
of his own accord. 
Children are not by nature prejudiced against animals like 
toads and earthworms, except that any unusual forms or move- 
ments are at first disconcerting ; but the example set by their 
elders, it must be confessed, is not always reassuring. The 
perfect harmony which earthworms display, through genera- 
tions of adaptation to their surroundings, and the survival 
of the ones best equipped for the struggle of life, is an inex- 
haustible source of interest and admiration, although every- 
thing depends, as has been said, upon the point of view. The 
easy adjustment of children to a new point of view may be 
illustrated by a little incident. 
A small girl of ten had shown a strong antipathy to some 
earthworms which she found lying in the garden path. She 
was so disturbed that her work was stopped, her pleasure 
