The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms

Charles Darwin's The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, with Observations on Their Habits, appears here in the London edition of 1904, thirteenth thousand, with illustrations. The contents for the first chapter, Habits of Worms, list the sites they inhabit, living under water, wandering at night, having no eyes but telling light from darkness, being completely deaf, and feeling vibrations and touch.

In one passage Darwin describes grassy paths across a heath in Surrey where worm castings abound on the more level parts, and a forest of tall, ancient beech trees in Knole Park where not a single casting could be found. Another passage lists the weight of castings collected near Nice in France, in Lower Bengal and in the Nilgiri Mountains of southern India. A further passage sets the layer of fine earth, 0.2 of an inch thick, brought up by worms each year against the sediment the Mississippi delivers to the sea.