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Show 6 INTRODUCTION. In the year 1869, Mr. Fish:!(: rejected my conclusions with respeet to the part which worms have played in the formation of vegetable mould, merely on account of their assumed incapacity to do so much work. He remarks that ''considering their weakness and their " size, the work they are represented to " have accomplished is stupendous." Here we have an instance of that inability to sum up the effects of a continually recurrent cause, which has often retarded the progress of science, as formerly in the case of geology, and more recently in that of the principle of evolution . .Although these several objections seemed to me to have no weight, yet I resolved to make more observations of the same kind as those published, and to attack the problem on another side; namely, to weigh all the castings thrown up within a given time in a measured space, instead of ascertaining the rate at which objects left ·on the surface were buried by worms. But some of my observations have been rendered almost superfluous by an admirable paper by Von I-Iensen, • ' GarJencrs' Chronicle,' April 17, 1869, p. 418. IN'l'RODUCTION. 7 already alluded to, which appeared in 1877. Before entering on details with respect to tho castings, it will be advisable to give some account of the habits of worms from my own observations and from those of other naturalists. |
