STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
689 
earth-worm, its under-ground burrows, it eats green leaves also. 
be perfectly honey-combed. All doubts that it was the earth-worm which 
I was pursuing were now dispelled; and I became aware it would be im¬ 
possible to find the animal by following it up in its burrow, as these bur¬ 
rows were now discovered to be interminable, and the worms would retreat 
from me therein with infinitely more celerity than I could follow them. 
I hence conclude that the principal residence of these earth-worms is at 
a depth of some sixteen inches from the surface, and below where the frost 
of winter penetrates; and here, in places where the surface soil is rich and 
the worms are numerous, the earth is mined by their burrows running in 
every direction, like the streets of a populous city. Another fact indicating 
that the earth is thus mined, has occurred to my notice. In striking into 
the soil of the garden with an iron bar, making holes into which to set 
bean poles and for other purposes, I have repeatedly been surprised to find 
that the bar, after penetrating the firm earth to a depth of .some sixteen or 
eighteen inches, would then come into remarkably loose soil, whereby, by 
merely working the implement backwards and forth, its own weight would . 
carry it down some distance further—the bar sometimes going down with 
such suddenness and case as to excite a suspicion that it would become 
lost from dropping into a cavern in the ground there. Other persons, I am 
sure, must have observed this same fact. Heretofore I hate been at quite 
a loss to account for such a looseness in the soil at such a depth. I now 
suppose it is caused by the multitudinous burrows of these earth-worms. 
From this underground retreat, holes extend upwards to the surface, 
from which by night the worms come abroad to feed^and to draw a supply 
of food into the mouths of their holes that they may consume it unmolested 
during the day time. This drawing of food into the mouths of their bur¬ 
rows is a common habit of these worms. The middle of June, 1860, in 
examining a cornfield which had been much injured by the frost a few 
nights before, I observed the ends of the dead blades of the young corn 
were in numerous instances drawn into the holes of the earth-worms. And 
in grass lands I have also, found the lower dead leaves of the grass, several 
inches in length, drawn into these holes in thg same manner. It is 
probably by coiling one end of its body around the blades of grass that it 
draws them to the mouth of its burrow, the minute bristles with which 
each of its rings is furnished, aiding it in clinging to the substance which 
is thus to be moved. That they are able to hold to and draw over the 
ground bodies of such size and weight as were the onions, shows that they 
have a power of prehension and avulsion, a power of grasping and pulling, 
which much exceeds anything of this kind which they are commonly 
supposed to possess. 
But, in addition to feeding upon earthy matter and upon dead and 
decaying leaves, these worms also attack vegetation which is green and 
growing. I have been reluotant to believe this, until instances have pre¬ 
sented themselves to my notice, putting the fact beyond all question. 
They are particularly prone to fall upon and appropriate to their own use 
tender garden vegetables which have been newly transplanted, the leaves 
of which, being flaccid and pliant from being slightly wilted, they draw 
Ac. Trans. 
