The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

Lessons from Darwin.

I. Earthworms.

Those of my readers who have visited the wonderful Natural History Museum of South Kensington, will perhaps remember the statue of Charles Darwin, which is place at the top of the first flight of steps. There he sits, and seems to preside over the whole marvelous collection of animals, birds, and insects; and rightly so, for no man has ever done more for the progress of Science, which, as you know, means the right understanding of the beautiful world of nature in the midst of which we live.

Darwin wrote a great many wise and learned books, and one of the most pleasant things about these books is, that they contain a great deal which is of intense interest to children as well as to grown up people. I often think that if little folks knew more about the was of Nature and her children, sometimes even the most enchanting fairy stories would be thought less interesting than the real histories of animals, birds, and insects.

Let us now begin to think about some of the wonderful stories we can read of in Darwin's books, and first of all we will take the earthworms.

I daresay you give a little shudder and say, "What horrid little creatures to think about, how can they be interesting;" but wait a moment and let us see. I am always sorry for the children who, though perhaps they have gardens of their very own, yet never give a thought to the worms which dwell in the mould, except to wish they were away, instead of always popping up unexpectedly whenever a spadeful of earth is turned up, as they so often do.

What will you say when I tell you, that without the earthworm you gardens could not be what they are--good places for growing plants and flowers. You know that plants are constantly sucking up, not only moisture from the earth, but all sorts of tiny particles of matter, which help them to live just as your food helps you. As this sucking-in is constantly going on, the mould would by and bye become exhausted and unable to give the necessary nourishment to roots and leaves and flowers. We see that gardeners and farmers understand this, because they dig and plough the soil, so as to bring fresh quantities of mould to the top; but long before farmers and gardeners did this, the earthworms were busy at work doing the very same thing, and still they do it, and without their help, farmers and gardeners would be very badly off indeed.

And now you will be asking "How" and "Why," very useful questions to bring to every new piece of knowledge which comes across your way. If we can, let us go out some evening after dark, with a lantern or a candle, say at the end of autumn, after some good showers of rain which will have moistened the earth, and what may we see or hear? Let us stoop over the grass plot and peer around, shading the light a little. We shall probably see a good number of worms busy crawling about, but most of them have their tails each in a hole in the ground. This is the burrow, which the worm rarely leaves; indeed he holds to it so fast by expanding the hinder-part of his body, and helped by the short bristles with which he is invisibly armed, that Darwin tells us he can seldom be dragged out of the ground without being torn in pieces. Worms are very fond of lying near the top of the burrows in the morning, and of this plan the thrushes and blackbirds highly approve when they are in want of their breakfast. Worms are supposed to come near the surface of the sake of the warmth, and they often arrange a coating of leaves at the mouths of their burrows, so as to have a cosy couch to keep them from the cold dampness of the earth. Leaves are also used to close up the mouths of their burrows, and sometimes at night a rustling noise may be heard, caused by the worms dragging dry leaves into their holes. If they cannot manage to obtain leaves for this purpose, they will drag a little heap of stones together to protect the top of the burrows. Darwin tells us of a lady who was fond of watching the doings of the worms in her garden. One night she took away all the little heaps fro the mouths of the burrows, and the next night when she went out with a lantern she could se the worms did not at all approve of her interference, as they were busy dragging back the stones, their tails being firmly fixed in the burrows.

Worms make their burrows in two different ways; by pushing away the earth on all sides, and also by swallowing it, so as to make a passage. Later on we shall see how very important this second plan of theirs is, when we come to know of the work worms do. The burrows are lined with a thin layer of fine earth given out by the worms; this hardens like cement, and when it is dry the hold fits the worm's body very closely. Then with the help of the tiny bristles which cover the body, a worm can go up and down very quickly indeed, and either backwards or forwards. This is more easily understood when we remember that the body of a worm is made up of a great many rings, each of which has a number of bristles. In the body of a large worm there will be between one and two hundred of these rings, which, as may be often noticed, can be stretched apart of kept close together. Their breathing is done through the skin, as they have no special lungs. They have no eyes either, but strangely enough they seem to be able to feel a very strong light. As to their food they eat many things, earth especially, of which they swallow immense quantities taking out of it anything they can get. Fresh leaves and dead leaves and flowers they are also very fond of, tearing them into tiny pieces, moistening them, but only half digesting them. Then these fragments mix with the earth and give to the mould the dark brown color we know so well.

After swelling earth down below, whether for food or for making its burrow, a worm very soon comes to the top to empty its body. It tries to show itself as little as possible, and is very fond of the shelter of a stone under which it can put its little heap of earth, which thus changes place from underneath to top. In England, these little heaps never grow very bit, but in the south of France, and in India, the "castings," as they are called, grow into quite tower-like masses, sometimes as much as three inches high. A little round passage runs through the middle of the tower, up which the worm travels to throw out more earth and so make the heap higher. The largest castings are made on the poorest land, because when the earth is not rich the worms have to swallow much larger quantity of it to find enough food.

In this way the whole of the top mould gradually passes over and over again through the bodies of worms, they constantly bringing what is below up to the top; and though you may think this is a very slow way of ploughing, it is not so really, for in every acre of ground there are thousands of worms, and each worm during the year brings up about twenty ounces of earth, or as much as would make a fair-sized cake.

In a few years stones or any small objects left on pasture land become buried underneath the earth brought up by the worms; and more curious still, in this manner all sorts of interesting things such as coins, gold ornaments, stone tools, and even old floors have been quite buried by the work of worms, and only found again by accident. The whole of the upper bed of mould is constantly being shifted, so that everything too big for worms to swallow sinks underneath.

As Darwin says, "It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world."

And now I hope you have heard enough to make you feel much more interested than you were before in these little creatures who really deserve our attention and interest for all their hard work.

Typed by Sarah Delgado, Sep. 2024