which the magnificent vegetation of the country
derives its development. It is a desperate
application of the primitive mode of alimentation
which succeeds perfectly with the worm, but
which becomes a cruel mockery when applied to
an organisation that exacts so much to sustain
it as man's. The marine-worm, still robuster
than the earth-worm, lives and thrives by swallowing
sand with whatever small proportion of mud
or organic refuse it may happen to contain.

Most of the ancients held the opinion that
worms were spontaneously produced from
corruption, without any eggs or other mode of
generation. Sir Thomas Browne and Mr.
Samuelson inform us that the worm is no exception
to the general rule that every living
creature comes from an egg. The baby-worm,
however, is born sometimes with, sometimes
without, its egg-shell, depending, we are told by
Dr. Carpenter, on the nature of the soil which
the worms are inhabiting: in a light and loose
soil, the young quit the parent prepared to act
for themselves; but in a tough clayey soil, they
continue in the pupal form for some time, so as
to arrive at a still higher development before
commencing to maintain an independent existence.

There is a family of worms, the Gordians,
whose history is spoken of as obscure, because
nobody knows much about them. Their length
is so great in proportion to their extreme slenderness,
that they look like animated threads;
whence the popular belief that a hair from a
horse's tail will, under favourable circumstances,
turn to a worm. They are mostly found in
water; but it is questionable whether water be
the constant or even the habitual habitat of all
the species. They do not live long kept in a
bottle of water. I have had them brought to
me, from ditches, after heavy and sudden rains;
and I have found them in my garden (which
contains no pond or reservoir), but always after
a thunder-shower, sometimes on the ground, but
once climbing on the top of a lily-stem. Whether
they issued from the earth, or came down with
the rain-drops, I cannot tell.

The earth-worm takes the highest rank in its
class, from being annulose, or made up of
distinct rings, which in full-grown subjects vary
from one hundred and twenty to one hundred
and fifty in number. It is the rings which give
to this familiar creature its great physiological
interest. They foreshadow an approach to the
articulate animals [and the Norfolk peasantry
make of it an articulate word, converting
"worm" into " wur-rum"], prefiguring a division
into segments or joints. They suggest the
first idea of vertebræ, or bits of backbone, to
which muscles may be attached, and from which
limbs may spring. Mr. Samuelson tells you to
lay a worm on the palm of your hand, and as it
tries to crawl away you will feel a slight sensation
of roughness. Take a pocket lens, and
examine the under side of the worm's body,
and you will perceive several rows of fine sharp
hooks extending from one end to the other of
the worm's body, each annulated division being
furnished with four pairs of these hooks, which
are situated upon small protuberances on the
creature's skin. These hooks cause the rough
sensation alluded to; and that portion of the
body on which they are placed corresponds
to the abdomen of the higher animals, the hooks
themselves being neither more nor less than
rudimentary feet, to aid the worm in its
progress. A centipede may be a worm in an
advanced and more fully developed condition.

Internally, as well as externally, each of the
earth-worm's rings (with the exception of the
torquis, or swelled fleshy band, which looks like
the scar of a wound) is the exact reproduction
of all the rest; indeed, as the young worm
increases in length, the number of its rings is
augmented by the subdivision of those which it
possessed at its birth. They are all formed of
circular muscles, enclosed between two coats,
which are prolonged and continued from one
ring to the other. A series of nervous
ganglions, running like a necklace through the whole
length of the body, sets a-going, and gives warning
to, this muscular system of rings, each of
which has thus its own local centre of sensation
and impulsion. How efficient they are, is proved
by the rapidity with which worms, taking the
air and seeking companionship on a moist electric
summer's evening, dart back into their holes as
your footstep approaches them.

Each ring is also fed on the spot by the
nutritive fluids with which it is in contact, the
interior tunic possessing the double property of
secreting digestive juice, and absorbing digested
juices. The result is veritable blood, which is
concocted in all parts of the body at once. Sir
Everard Home, in his Thirteenth Lecture on
Comparative Anatomy, illustrated by Bower,
shows that the earth-worm is provided with a central
artery, shining through its semi-transparent
skin like a fine crimson streak, with six bags or
cells filled with red blood, on each side of it.

Each, therefore, of the earth-worm's rings is,
all by itself, at once a little eating and digesting
machine, and also a little walking machine—
that is to say, a complete animal. Each ought,
in strictness, to be able to suffice to itself and
to live apart; which is proved by experiment to
be the case, approximatively. Milne Edwards
tells us that, if you cut an earth-worm
transversely into two, three, ten, and even twenty
pieces, each morsel can continue to live, after
the creature's original and normal manner of life,
so as to constitute a new individual.

Twenty fractions seems a great many to make
of one unfortunate worm; because, according
to most gardeners' summary observations,
several rings need remain united in order to heal
the bleeding wounds. But suppose you cut a
worm only into halves with your spade: before
the cutting, there was one being; after the
cutting, there are two. But if there are two after
the stroke of the spade, it must be because
there were two before it. Moreover, there is
no necessity for the operation being actually
performed, in order to be assured of the
particular and individual life of each single ring.
There is a worm well known, at least by name