contribution to a history of the earthworm’s life habits. For it
should be borne in mind that the soil covering the buried city is a
rich mould, which has been under cultivation for the last nine or ten
centuries, and is the kind of soil in which the earthworm finds his
best conditions and attains his greatest size and vigour. Consider
next that the soil in the deep pits and everywhere beneath the Roman
pavements is a cold, heavy, hardly-pressed earth undisturbed for many
centuries, unpierced by root of plant or ray of sun, and probably to
a great extent devoid of the microbic life which makes the upper soil
alive. When you turn over this long-buried soil with the spade it has
a heavy damp smell, but not the familiar earth-smell of _Clodothrix
odorifera_. Yet down in this dark dead soil the worms will insist on
descending, although their only way to it is through the few small
cylindrical holes they have succeeded in boring through the partially
rotted cement between the tiles, or where a minute stone has dropped
out of the tesserae pavements. Their descent into these difficult
places and down into the old pits involves long double journeys daily
when they are forced to come up to deposit their castings on the
surface.
What then is the force impelling them? Why do they leave a rich
feeding-ground for a poor one? I take these facts in their relation to
other well-known facts, as for example that of the quite extraordinary
difference in size and vigour and colouring in the earthworms
inhabiting different soils. They are like different species. Let us
take the case of the London earthworm to be found in every few square
yards of earth unbuilt on, even in the very heart of the City itself.
Judging from all the specimens I have examined, this worm attains to
about half the full normal size and is comparatively languid in his
movements and rarely exhibits the brilliant play of colours seen in
the large country worm in rich soil--the colour which is the sign of
intensity of life. Doubtless he was once a big vigorous worm, but that
was long ago in an old London, or Londineum, and he has had ample time
to degenerate. In this state he is now biding his time, under our feet,
and his time will come when our seven millions have faded or drifted
away; then indeed he will recover his power, and slowly, patiently,
unhasting and unresting, day and night, year by year, century after
century, he will labour to sink away brick and stone beneath the
surface and cover it all with a deep rich mould and a mantle of
everlasting verdure.
Then we have the earthworms inhabiting heaths and all sandy soils
throughout the land. They are no better than the London earthworms. One
day last autumn I found the gardener at the house in a pine wood where
I was staying at Ascot digging potatoes. I took a spade and went to him
and started digging for worms at his side. There was a magnificent crop
of potatoes, as it has been everywhere this autumn of 1918, but the
earthworms we turned up were few in number and very poor specimens. “It
is useless,” said the gardener, “to look for a big worm here--I never
see one. It is the sand that starves them.”
I am not sure that this is a sufficient explanation: in the rich soils
in these highly cultivated gardens in this heath and pine district
where wealthy people have their homes, the worms, one would think,
must find sufficient nourishment. It is more probable that their poor
condition is due to something inimical to earthworms in the sand itself.
On the chalk, where the soil is thin, as in the sheep-walks, the
earthworms are comparatively small in size, but vigorous and quick in
their movements amidst the interlacing fibrous roots of the close
turf. In the hollow places between the hills, where a deeper soil has
been formed, the worms attain to their full size--all which goes to
show that chalk itself is not inimical to worms. In heavy clays the
appearance of the worms show that the conditions are not favourable.
Thus we see that earthworms are perpetually invading and peopling all
soils, good and bad; also that if you have a piece of hard ground
barren of food for worms and free of worms, where for long years they
have not been permitted to exist, they will constantly flow in from all
the surrounding rich soils where worms abound and flourish in order
to get possession of it. The cause, I take it, is that the earthworm
abhors the soil frequented by other worms, which is impregnated with
the acid the worm secretes and discharges into the soil. The acid
spoils the ground for him, and he prefers to go outside into the most
barren and unsuitable places to remaining in it. And the perpetual
desire to get away and seek pastures new is the reason of the wide
distribution of the earthworm, of its universality, so that there is
not a clod on the surface of the earth without a worm for inhabitant.
Three or four days after witnessing the remarkable phenomenon I
described some pages back--the rush of hungry earthworms to secure
a windfall of leaves torn before their time from the trees and
consequently not well suited to their masticating powers--I paid a
visit at a country-house a few miles away, and found there one of the
finest lawns I had ever seen. The old Georgian house was built on an
eminence overlooking the valley and stood in the centre of a square
and perfectly flat piece of ground, which was all lawn; then the
ground sloped on all sides to a terrace, and slope and terrace were
all lawn too and one with the level ground above. The great extent and
marvellous smoothness of this lawn filled me with admiration--when
I saw it at a distance; but I no sooner set foot on it than I began
to quarrel with it. To begin with, the ground was hard; there was no
elastic, no real turf; it was like walking on flagstones. Nothing but
grass grew on that lawn, not in a matted turf, but each grass or grass
plant by itself, so that when looking closely down at one’s feet one
saw the hard ground between the blades and roots. On all that ground
there was not a daisy to be seen, nor any of the small creeping plants
and clovers usually found on lawns.
Before my visit was over I succeeded in getting hold of the gardener
and asked him how he managed to keep his large lawn so clean and
smooth. He took it that I was praising his work and began to tell me
what a tremendous task it was to keep it in that perfect condition.
“But I think,” said I, “that if you would call in the earthworms to
help you and did less yourself you would have a better lawn.”
At first he thought I was joking and was much amused. Earthworms, he
assured me, were the worst enemies of lawns--they made such a mess!
His greatest trouble was to keep them down. He was always going round
with a bucket of brine, particularly about the lower borders, where
they were always trying to come in, and poured the brine down their
holes. Brine was the best worm-killer he knew; and the result of his
care and use of it was that you wouldn’t be able to find a worm on all
that immense lawn.
I asked him if he could not understand that it was no pleasure to walk
or sit or lie on a lawn where the ground was always dry and hard in
spite of all the watering he gave it. To walk on his lawn tired and
depressed me, whereas on the chalk-hill behind the house I could walk
miles with pure delight, simply because it was a close-matted turf and
was felt beneath the feet like a pile-carpet drawn over a thick rubber
floor. It lifted me when I walked on it, and was better than the most
luxurious couch to lie on, to say nothing of the pleasure one received
from the sight of its small gem-like flowers and from its aromatic
scent. As to the castings, they were unpleasant only when the lawn was
wet in the morning, and only then when the grass was too thin. You do
not see the castings on the thick turf on the downs, although if you
take up a sod you find earthworms at the roots in abundance.
Well, he answered, a lawn could not have a turf like a chalk-hill fed
by sheep, because--such a turf wasn’t the right one for a lawn to have.
Then, as this seemed a rather poor argument, he suddenly brightened up
and said: “And what about the moles? Do you know that with a large lawn
like this, with grass fields all round it, you are always in danger of
getting a mole--that is to say if there are any earthworms to attract
him. And a mole can disfigure a lawn as much as if you had made a
furrow with a plough across it.”
No doubt he was right there; but when I said that moles could be kept
out by sinking a rabbit net to a depth of two or three feet beneath the
surface and would save a lot of labour and expense, he only smiled and
shook his head.
The gardener, like the gamekeeper, is never a person who will allow you
to teach him anything, but after our conversation I was more convinced
than ever that it would be better for the lawn if, instead of killing
and starving the worms, we were to feed them and allow them to make and
keep a turf.
With this idea in my mind I tried a fresh experiment. I pegged out
a strip of the lawn at the cottage, about ten feet wide, and ran a
cord on each side to keep it distinct from the rest of the ground,
and over that strip I sprinkled leaves from the acacia and other
trees abundantly. I examined the ground on the following day and
saw no change. Leaves were still lying thickly on the ground, and
it was impossible to tell whether any had been carried away or not.
The next day it was the same. On the morning of the third day there
was something new to note: it looked as if the worms inhabiting the
quartered-off ground had suddenly developed a wonderful vigour and
activity, or as if a rush of worms from all over the lawn to that
favoured spot had taken place. The ground was thickly sprinkled over
with castings, mostly under the herbage, although after a careful
search I could not find a single casting anywhere else on the lawn.
It was evident that the worms had been taking the leaves into their
runs and feeding greedily on them, and I confidently expected that
the result would be that in a little while the turf on the marked
strip of ground would be thicker, greener, more elastic to the tread.
Unfortunately I was obliged to leave the place when the experiment was
just at its beginning, so that nothing was proved; and I hope that
some reader of this paper, who possesses a lawn, or is about to form
one, will carry the matter further and try to find out whether or not
a better result may be had by encouraging the earthworms to work with
and for us instead of regarding them as enemies and trying to suppress
them.
INDEX
_Acherontia atropas_, 217-19
Adders, the quest of, 15;
dreaming of, 19;
reasons for not killing, 20-28;
swallowing their young, 21;
measuring, 25;
capturing, 28-9;
beautiful colours in, 29-32
Adder-stone, 16
Agouti, beauty of the, 288
Aldebaran, an intelligent visitor from, 37-40
Aldermaston, snake preserve at, 17
Ants, a danger to fledgelings, 5-6; 9-10; 13-14
_Aquilegia._ _See_ Columbine
_Ardea cinerea_ and _A. cocoi_. _See_ Heron
Arnold, Matthew, serpent poetry of, 195-7;
lines on fritillary, 331
Badger, encounter with a, 51-2
Barrett, Charles, on ants destroying fledgelings in Australia, 14
Bastard balm, beauty and rarity of the, 327
Bats, Pliny on, 33;
genealogy of, 33-6;
how Nature made, 37-40;
ferocity of, 41-2;
migration, 42-44;
sense organs, 44-6;
Cuvierand Spallanzani on extra senses in, 45-8;
J. G. Millais on faculties of, 49
Beddard, Dr. F. E., an authority on earthworms, 347
Bell’s _British Quadrupeds_, campaign against moles related in, 116
_Bicho moro._ _See_ Blister-beetle
Birds, stories about, 74-83
Bird’s-foot trefoil, on a prehistoric earthwork, 323-5
Blister-beetle, ravages of the, 309;
appearance and smell of, 309;
a rapacious fly enemy of, 311
Book of the Serpent, a, 186
Breydon Water, herons fishing in, 102
Britton, J., a story of a fox told by, 56
Browne, Sir Thomas, on fear of serpents, 178
Browning, grandfather of the poet, 330
Byron, potato with vinegar devoured by, 308
Caius, Dr., the British dogs of, 250
Cantharides, 309
Cat, friendship of, with rat, 234-7
Chaucer, 318
Chequered daffodil. _See_ Fritillary
Chillingham, the white bull of, his low place in the scheme of things, 34
Chinchilla, beauty and grace of, 287
_Clodothrix odorifera_, 349
Cobbe, Miss Frances Power, an admirer of Schopenhauer, 292
Columbine, the blue, in England, 328-31
Cormorant struggling with eel, 98;
as a pet, 233
_Crotalus durissus_, New England rattlesnake, 205
Cuvier, on senses of bats, 45-8
Daisies, on old Roman Road, 322
Danish farmer, imaginary conversation with a Wiltshire pig-keeper, 298-9
Darwin, on the origin of the domestic dog, 275;
on earthworms, 348-9
Daw, history of a tame, 77-8
Death by accident in wild life, 96
Death’s-head moth, seen in numbers, 217-19
Demeter, the Corn Mother, 312
Dog, the little red, character and anecdotes of, 238-46
Dogs, friendly with lamb, 128;
effect of muzzling order on, 247-264;
artificial instincts in, 272
Dolichotis, a Patagonian rodent, 287
Earthworms, effect of weed-killer on, 343;
habits of, in relation to lawns, 345-6;
London, 350-51;
heath and sandy soil, 351;
chalk soil, 351-2;
cause of wide distribution of, 352-6
Elsie Venner Infelix, 209
_Epicauta adspersa._ _See_ Blister-beetle
Fayrer, Sir Joseph, a great ophiologist, 197
Fer-de-lance, an impression of the, 188
Flea, origin of the, 36
Flowers, beauty and charm of wild, 316;
adorning waste lands and ruins, 322;
on an old Roman road, 323;
on a prehistoric earthwork, 323-5;
rare and local, 326
Fox, beauty of the, 50-54;
sentiment concerning the, 55;
a South American music-loving, 58;
adventures of a three-legged, 59-62
Fox terrier, character of the, 253
Fritillary, appearance of, seen growing in profusion, 331-4;
beauty and singularity of the, 334-6
Geranium, _G. pyrenaicum_, 327;
the blue, 327
Ghost-moth, dance of the, 221-2
Glanville, Ernest, on the African Icanti, 158-9
Goat’s-beard, various folk-names of, 317-18;
singular habit of, 318-22
Gould, earliest writer on habits of ants, 251
Grass of Parnassus, beauty of the, 327
Grey, Viscount, squirrels tamed by, 233
Guanaco, a pet, in Patagonia and its habits, 125
Guinea (or Ginny) flower. _See_ Fritillary
Guira cuckoo, a mouse-killer, 97
Hake, Dr. Gordon, serpent poetry of, 197-200
Hawk-moths, 217;
death’s-head, 217-19;
crimson underwing, 219-221;
humming-bird, 222-4
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, character of his genius, 203-4;
in search of a weed, 338
Heron, bathing, 93;
strange adventure with a, 94-6;
flight of the, 103;
a ghostly bird, 104;
as a table-bird, 106-12
Heronry, a great, 47
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, story of a serpent girl, 201-9
Hopley, Miss C. C, on the serpent’s tongue, 139;
her pet slow-worm, 233
Horse, habit of a tamed wild, 119-122;
twitching muscle in the, 229
House-martin, accidentally killed, 98
Humming-bird, flight in the, 47;
hawk-moth, 222-4
Huxley, on monographs, 190
Icanti, African serpent myth, 159
James, Henry, on living in a pine wood, 3
John-go-to-bed-at-noon, singular habit of, 316
Keats, serpent poetry of, 200
Kidd, Benjamin, humble-bees tamed by, 232, 280
Lacepede, on the serpent’s uses, 136
_Lagidium_, an Andean rodent, 287
Lang, Andrew, on drawing-room dogs, 292-4
Lawns, feeling about, 337;
Sir Walter Raleigh quoted, 337-8;
in relation to earthworms, 340-344
Leibnitz, on a talking dog, 279
Lemurs, beauty and docility of the, 286-7
Lindsay, Dr. Lauder, _Mental Evolution_ quoted, 279;
on the dog’s spiritual nature, 288
Long, Sir Walter, dog-muzzling order of, 252
Luys, Dr., the revolving mirror of, 149
_Macroglossa stellatarum_, 224
Maize Mother, ancient worship of the, 312
Mallow, geranium-leafed scented, 327
Marmoset, charm of the domesticated, 285
Marmot, the prairie, 287-8
Mental evolution of animals, 281
Merry-lee-dance-a-pole, folk-name of a hawk-moth, 222
Millais, J. G., on the senses of bats, 49
Mole, whether injurious or not, 113-118;
persecution of the, in France, 116;
impending destruction of the, 116;
the strenuous, 225-7;
twitching muscle of the, 227-31
Morris, Mowbray, on dogs and their detractors, 291
Mother of the Waters, the mythical serpent, 169
_Mus decumanus_, 233
Mushrooms, growing in rings, 164
Natterjack, music of the, 89
Nunn, Mr. Joseph, the sparrow’s friend, 114
_Origin of Species_, 214
Owl, its supernatural reputation, 165
Painted snipe, caught in a mussel-shell, 99
Peaches and peach-stones, 307
Pig, social disposition of the, 295;
a friendly, 297-302;
a forest animal, 298;
eating elder-berries, 301
Pine-snake, beauty and motions of the, 155
Pine woods, effect of living in, 1;
wild life in, 4-14
Pipit, a fascinated, 149
Potato, the wild, 303;
cultivated, 304;
eaten with oil and vinegar, 307;
ravages of the blister-beetle, 309-11;
Mother of the, 312;
manner of cooking the, in England, 313;
what the doctors say, 314
Raleigh, Sir Walter, a shining Elizabethan, 312;
his praise of gardens and lawns, 337-8
Rat, the unloved, 233;
friendship with cat, 234-7
Rice Mother, 312
Romanes, Dr., _Mental Evolution of Animals_, 281
Rooks, their loose social law, 79-83
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds: Bird and Tree Day essays by
school children, 6
Ruskin, on the serpent’s tongue, 134;
on the serpent myth, 153;
on serpent motions, 154
Russell, Dr., of Brighton, 1
Sanchoniathan, the Phoenician, 153, 191
Savernake Forest, a fox in, 52
Seal and conger eel, duel between, 98
Selous, on instinctive fear in horses, 176
Serpent, use of its tongue, 134-52;
myths of a great, 158-9, 169-71;
strangeness, 153;
origin and universality of worship, 161;
instinctive fear of the, 174-8;
Satanic theory, 178-80;
a Book of the, 186-91;
the, in literature, 191
Sheep, individuality in, 123;
a book-destroying, 124;
a friend of dogs, 127
Sheldrake, beauty of the, 108
Shelley, his _Witch of Atlas_, 157
Silchester, the forest of, 84;
excavation at, 347-9
Snake, a preserver of the, 16;
taming a wild, 91-2;
a frog-hunter, 144;
shyness, 192;
a tame, 280
Spallanzani, experiments on bats, 45-8
Sparrow-hawks, in pine wood, 4, 7
Spider, strategy of hunting, 145;
as a pet, 232
Squirrel, fable of a, 63-9;
adventures of a migrating, 70-73;
migratory impulses, 70;
taming the, 233;
volatile character of the, 286
Stradling, Dr. Arthur, on the serpent’s tongue, 139
Stag, lower than the bat, 34
Starlings, killed by sparrow-hawk, 8
Stoat, a water-vole hunting, 86
Tabley, Lord de, ghost-moth poetry of, 222
Tehuelches, children of the Patagonian, 163
Thoreau, on the squirrel, 286;
his “handful of rice” 297
Throstle, desire for worms of the caged, 75-7
Toad, the, as traveller, 84-9;
concert music and marriage customs, 88-9;
pleased to be caressed, 90;
tongue and fly-catching of, 90-1
Traherne, the Herefordshire mystic, 224
Tregarthen, J. C., anecdotes of fox and otters reared with hounds, 132
Twitching muscle, mole, 228-31;
dog, 228;
horse, 229;
man, 229-230;
hare, 231
Tyndall and Hindhead, 1
Tyrant-bird, rapacious habits of a, 97
Vernal squill, first appearance of, 327
Viper, _Vipera berus_. _See_ Adder
Vizcacha, account of the, 130
Wasps, spiteful temper, 210-12;
brilliant colouring, 213;
diabolical instincts of, 214
Waterton, on heron’s fishing, 93
White, Gilbert, on a tame snake, 280
Willughby, the ornithologist, 250
Wright, Sir Almroth, on our skin-scraping habit, 338
Youatt, on a strange dog superstition, 277
THE END
_Printed in Great Britain by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.