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Show 70 IIABI'l'S OF WORMS. CIIAP. II. of their length ; and this narrowness was chiefly due to the curling in of the In::tr<Yins. Out of 36 faJlen leaves on another bed, in which different varieties of the Rhododendron o-rew only 17 were narrower towards the b ' base than towards the apex. My son William, who first ca1led my attention to this case, picked up 237 fallen leaves in his garden (where the Rhododendron grows in the natural soil) and of these 65 per cent. could have been drawn by worms into tl1eir burrows more easily by the base or foot-stalk than by the tip; and this was partly due to the shape of the leaf and in a less degree to the curling in of the margins: 27 per cent. could have been drawn in more easily by the tip than by the base : and 8 per cent. with about equal ease by either end. The shape of a fallen leaf ought to be judged of before one end has been drawn into a burrow, for after this has happened, the free end, whether it be the base or apex, will dry more quickly than the end embedded in the damp ground ; and the exposed margins of the free end will consequently tend to become more curled inwards than they were when the leaf was first seized by the worm. My CHAP. II. TITEIR INTELLIGENCE. 71 son found 91 leaves which l1ad been dr<t<Y<Yed by worms I· nto t h ei. r burrows, though not: stno a great depth; of these 66 per cent. had been drawn in by the base or foot-stalk ; and 34 per cent. b~ the tip. In this case, therefore, the worms JUdged with a considerable degree of correctness how best to draw the withered leaves of this foreign plant into their burrows. not~ithstanding that they had to depart frorr: their usual habit of avoiding the foot-stalk. On the gravel-walks in my garden a very la:ge number of leaves of three species of Pmus (P. austriaca, nigricans and sylvestris) are regularly drawn into the mouths of wormburrows. These leaves consist of two needles which are of considerable length in the tw~ first a~d short in the last named species, and are united to a common base; and it is by this part that they are almost invariably drawn Into the burrows. I have seen only two or at most three exceptions to this rule with w~rms in a state of nature. As the sharply p01nted needles diverge a little, and as several leaves are drawn into the same burrow, each tuft ~orms a perfect chevaux de frise. On two ?ccaswns m.any of these tufts were pulled up 1n the evening, but by the following morning |
