THE ITATURALISTS’ COMPAOTOR'. 
25 
THE EARTH”WOEM, 
APOTHEOSIS OF THE WORM. 
Dr. Chas. Darwin has written a 
work which is creating a profound 
sensation in scientific circles. He 
has been studying the common earth¬ 
worm for over thirty years, and has 
come to the conclusion that mankind 
is more indebted to that loathsome, 
wriggling creature than to any other 
race of the inferior orders of creation. 
The earth, according to Darwin, 
would be a desert were it not for 
the worm. Its value is that it eats 
dirt and turns it into vegetable mold. 
There are, on an average, on every 
acre of ground over 57,000 worms. 
These eat and digest from 8 to 16 
tons of soil per acre, in the course of 
a year. Whatever passes through 
the intestinal canal of the worm be¬ 
comes vegetable mold, and without 
this mold there would be no crops, 
no increase of grain, or the animals 
which feed upon the products of the 
soil. Hor is this all, the worm is 
the possessor of the memorials of 
the past. Its mission is to cover 
naked surface with vegetable mold. 
The deserted cities and memorials 
of the past are first hidden from 
sight by the ejecta of the worm, then 
comes the dust, and the sand storm, 
and the accreations from outside of 
our atmosphere. Troy is 200 feet 
underground, and it took 300 years 
to cover it with so much .soil. This 
wriggling, loathsome creature is one 
of the most degraded and imperfect 
organisms known to the naturalist. 
It has no brain, no organs of vision, 
cannot hear, and has no sense of 
smell, it has a certain amount ot in¬ 
telligence, however, and knows 
enough to get out ot the sunlight. 
Put, notwithstanding its deficiencies. 
it is the greatest benefactor, not only 
to man, but to the other superior 
animals. It may comfort fishermen 
to know that the worm they use in 
angling has but little nervous sensi¬ 
bility, and cannot be said to suffer 
pain when impaled on the fish-hook. 
It will not do to despise the worm,for, 
as a London paper well says, it from 
this time forth will wear the blue rib¬ 
bon otscience-DEMOREST’s Monthly 
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