THE WORM. 
355 
spring, they revive with the rest of nature, and on those 
occasions, a moist or dewy evening brings them forth from 
their retreats, for the universal purpose of continuing their 
kind. They chiefly live in a light, rich and fertile soil, 
moistened by dews or accidental showers, but avoid those 
places where the water is apt to lie on the surface of the 
earth, or where the clay is too stiff for their easy progression 
under ground. 
Helpless as they are formed, yet they seem very vigilant in 
avoiding those animals that chiefly make them their prey ; in 
particular, the mole, who feeds entirely upon them beneath 
the surface, and who seldom ventures, from the dimness of 
its sight, into the open air; him they avoid, by darting up 
from the earth, the instant they feel the ground move: and 
fishermen, who are well acquainted with this, take them in 
what numbers they choose, by stirring the earth where they 
expect to find them. They are also driven from their re 
treats under ground, by pouring bitter or acid water there- 
on, such as that water in which green walnuts have been 
steeped, or a lye made of potashes. 
Such is the general outline of the history of these reptiles, 
which, as it should seem, degrades them no way beneath 
the rank of other animals of the insect creation ; but we 
now come to a part of their history which proves the imper- 
fection of their organs, from the easiness with which these 
little machines may be damaged and repaired again. It is 
well known in mechanics, that the finest and most compli- 
cated instruments are the most easily put out of order, and 
the most difficult to set right ; the same also obtains in the 
animal machine. 
Man, the most complicated machine of all, whose nerves 
are more numerous, and powers of action more various, is 
most easily destroyed : he is seen to die under wounds which 
a quadruped or a bird would easily survive ; and as we 
descend gradually to the lower ranks, the rudei the compo- 
sition, the more difficult it is to disarrange it. Some animals 
live without their limbs, and often are seen to reproduce 
them ; some are seen to live without their brain for many 
weeks together : caterpillars continue to increase and grow 
large, though all their nobler organs are entirely destroyed 
within ; some animals continue to exist, though cut in two, 
their nobler parts preserving life, while the others perish 
that were cut away; but the earth-worm, and all the 
zoophyte tribe, continue to live in separate parts, and one 
animal, by the means of cutting, is divided into two distinct 
existences, sometimes into a thousand. 
