Part 13

It is very remarkable how few noxious creatures, animals which annoy man, inhabit with us; beasts and birds we have none, for the petty depredations occasionally made on his property are undeserving of attention. The gnat, and perhaps a few insects, may at times puncture our skin, but the period of action is brief, the injury only temporary. The wasp and the hornet, I believe, very rarely use their weapons wantonly, only in self-defence and when persecuted; thus leaving the balance incalculably in favor of innocency and harmlessness. But of all the guiltless beings which are met with, we have none less chargeable with criminality than the poor slow-worm (anguis fragilis), yet none are more frequently destroyed than it—included as it is in the general and deep-rooted prejudice attached to the serpent race. The viper and the snake, though they experience no mercy, escape often by activity of action; but this creature, from the slowness of his movements, falls a more frequent victim. We call it a ‘blind-worm,’ possibly from the supposition that as it makes little effort to escape, it sees badly; but its eyes, though rather small, are clear and lively, with no apparent defect of vision. The natural habits of the slow-worm are obscure; but living in the deepest foliage, and the roughest banks, he is generally secreted from observation; and loving warmth, like all his race, he creeps half torpid from his hole, to bask in spring time in the rays of the sun, and is, if seen, inevitably destroyed. Exquisitely formed as all these gliding creatures are, for rapid and uninterrupted transit through herbage and such impediments, it is yet impossible to examine a slow-worm without admiration at the peculiar neatness and fineness of the scales with which it is covered. All separate as they are, yet they lap over, and close upon each other with such exquisite exactitude, as to appear only as faint markings upon the skin, requiring a magnifier to ascertain their separations; and, to give him additional facility of proceeding through rough places, these are all highly polished, appearing lustrous in the sun, the animal looking like a thick piece of tarnished copper wire. When surprised in his transit from the hedge, contrary to the custom of the snake or viper, which writhe themselves away into the grass in the ditch, he stops, as if fearful of proceeding, or to escape observation by remaining motionless, but if touched he makes some effort to escape: this habit of the poor slow-worm becomes frequently the cause of his destruction.

Of all the active, vigilant creatures that animate our paths, we have none superior to the little, bee-like bombylius (bombylius medius); but this creature is to be seen only in the mornings of a few bright days in spring, seeming to delight in the hot, windy gleams of that season, presenting an emblem of that portion of our year, fugitive and violent. It is, I believe, plentiful nowhere. Particularly solicitous of warmth, it seeks the dry sunny reflection of some sheltered gravel-walk, or ditch-bank in a warm lane; and here it darts and whisks about, in seeming continual suspicion or danger; starting away with angry haste, yet returning immediately to the spot it had left; buffeting and contending with every winged fly that approaches, with a jealous, pugnacious fury, that keeps it in constant agitation. This action, its long projecting proboscis, and its pretty, spotted wings, placed at right angles with its body, distinguish our bombylius from every other creature. It appears singularly cautious of settling on the ground. After long hovering over and surveying some open spot, with due deliberation and the utmost gentleness it commits its long, delicate feet to the earth; but on the approach of any winged insect, or on the least alarm, is away again to combat or escape. Associates it has none: the approach even of its own race excites its ire, and, darting at them with the celerity of thought, it drives them from its haunts. When a captive it becomes tame and subdued, and loses all its characteristic bustling and activity, the inspiration of freedom.

The great black ant (formica fuliginosa) is commonly found in all little copses, animating by its numbers those large heaps of vegetable fragments, which it collects and is constantly increasing with unwearied industry and perseverance as a receptacle for its eggs. The game-fowl, the woodpecker, the wryneck, and all the birds that feed upon the little red ant, and soon depopulate the hillocks which they select, do not seem equally to annoy this larger species. These systematic creatures appear always to travel from and return to their nests in direct lines, from which no trifling obstacle will divert them; and any interruption on this public highway they resent, menacing the intruder with their vengeance. A neighbor related to me an instance of this unyielding disposition, which he witnessed in one of our lanes. Two parties of these black ants were proceeding from different nests upon a foraging expedition, when the separate bodies happened to meet each other. Neither would give way; and a violent contest for the passage ensued. After a time the combat ceased, and all animosity subsided, each party retiring to its nest, carrying with it its dead and maimed companions. This encounter seemed quite accidental, and the disposition to move in a uniform line, which their meeting prevented, the sole cause of their hostility, combat, and mutual injury. The strength of some creatures, especially insects, considering the smallness of their size, is in several instances prodigious. Man, by his reason and power, calls to his aid mechanical means, and other agents, to effect his objects; but unreasoning beings accomplish their purposes by contrivance and bodily powers. The strength of these black ants is manifested by the quantity and magnitude of the materials which they collect for their heaps; but the common little red ant (formica rubea), a much smaller creature, gives daily proofs of its abilities to remove heavy substances, equal to any that we meet with. One of these little creatures, thirty-six of which only weigh a single grain, I have seen bear away the great black fly as its prize, equal to a grain in weight, with considerable ease; and even the wasp, which exceeds forty times its own weight, will be dragged away by the labor and perseverance of an individual emmet. These little ants are occasionally and profusely deprived of their lives by some unknown visitation. In the year 1826, in particular, and again in the following year, I observed, in the month of August, a lane strewed with their bodies. They had bred during the summer in an adjoining bank; but some fatality had overwhelmed them when absent from their nests, and nearly annihilated the fraternity, as only a few scattered survivors were to be seen feebly inspecting the bodies of their associates. The task of removal, however, with all their industry, appeared beyond their powers to accomplish, as on the ensuing day few had been taken away. Had these creatures been destroyed in combat by rival contention, the animosity must have been excessive; but it is more probable that they met their death by some other infliction.

One year, on the 3d of March, my laborer being employed in cutting up ant-hills, or tumps, as we call them, exposed to view multitudes of the yellow species (formica flava) in their winter’s retirement. They were collected in numbers in little cells and compartments, communicating with others by means of narrow passages. In many of the cells they had deposited their larvæ, which they were surrounding and attending, but not brooding over or covering. Being disturbed by our rude operations, they removed them from our sight to more hidden compartments. The larvæ were small. Some of these ant-hills contained multitudes of the young of the woodlouse (oniscus armadillo), inhabiting with perfect familiarity the same compartments as the ants, crawling about with great activity with them, and perfectly domesticated with each other. They were small and white; but the constant vibration of their antennæ, and the alacrity of their motions, manifested a healthy vigor. The ants were in a somewhat torpid state; but on being removed into a temperate room, they assumed much of their summer animation. How these creatures are supported during the winter season it is difficult to comprehend, as in no one instance could we perceive any store or provision made for the supply of their wants. The minute size of the larvæ manifested that they had been recently deposited; and consequently that their parents had not remained during winter in a dormant state, and thus free from the calls of hunger. The preceding month of February, and part of January, had been remarkably severe; the frost had penetrated deep into the earth, and long held it frozen; the ants were in many cases not more than four inches beneath the surface, and must have been inclosed in a mass of frozen soil for a long period; yet they, their young, and the onisci, were perfectly uninjured by it; affording another proof of the fallacy of the commonly received opinion, that cold is universally destructive to insect life. Some creatures may be injured or destroyed by frost, but the larger portion of them nature has provided with constitutions to which it is innocuous, or furnished with instinct to prevent its harming them. These emmets had probably received no substance, or required any, from the time of their retirement in the autumn, a period of full six months; were inclosed during the space of thirty days in a mass of frozen earth, and yet remained perfectly uninjured by this long abstinence and frost.

Water, in a state of rest over decayed and putrescent vegetable matter, is peculiarly favorable for the residence of many of the insect world. The eggs that are lodged there remain undisturbed by the agitation of the element, and the young produced from them, or deposited there by viviparous creatures, remain in quiet, tolerably secure from accidental injuries; but there are natural causes which render these apparent asylums the fields of ravenousness and of death. To these places resort many of those voracious insects and other creatures, which prey upon the smaller and helpless; for all created things seem subordinate to some more powerful or irresistible agent, from the hardly visible atom that floats in the pool, to man, who claims and commands the earth as his own. But we have no animal that seems to commit greater destruction in these places than the common newt (lacertus aquaticus). In some of these well-stored magazines this reptile will grow to a large size, and become unusually warty, and bloated with repletion; feeding and fattening upon the unresisting beings that abound in those dark waters wherein it loves to reside. It will take a worm from the hook of those that angle in ponds; and in some places I have seen the boys in the spring of the year draw it up by their fishing-lines, a very extraordinary figure, having a small shell-fish (tellina cornea) attached to one or all of its feet; the toes of the newt having been accidentally introduced into the gaping shell, in its progress on the mud at the bottom of the pool, or designedly put in for the purpose of seizure, when the animal inhabitant closed the valves and entrapped the toes. But from whatever causes these shells became fixed, when the animal is drawn up hanging and wriggling with its toes fettered all round, it affords a very unusual and strange appearance.

Water, quiet, still water, affords a place of action to a very amusing little fellow (gyrinus natator), which about the month of April, if the weather be tolerably mild, we see gamboling upon the surface of the sheltered pool; and every schoolboy, who has angled for a minnow in the brook, is well acquainted with this merry swimmer in his shining black jacket. Retiring in the autumn, and reposing all the winter in the mud at the bottom of the pond, it awakens in the spring, rises to the surface, and commences its summer sports. They associate in small parties of ten or a dozen, near the bank, where some little projection forms a bay, or renders the water particularly tranquil; and here they will circle round each other without contention, each in his sphere, and with no apparent object, from morning until night, with great sprightliness and animation; and so lightly do they move on the fluid, as to form only some faint and transient circles on its surface. Very fond of society, we seldom see them alone, or, if parted by accident, they soon rejoin their busy companions. One pool commonly affords space for the amusement of several parties; yet they do not unite, or contend, but perform their cheerful circlings in separate family associations. If we interfere with their merriment they seem greatly alarmed, disperse, or dive to the bottom, where their fears shortly subside, as we soon again see our little merry friends gamboling as before.

This lively little animal, arising from its winter retreat shortly after the frog, at times in March, continues its gambols all the summer long, remaining visible generally until the middle of October, thus enjoying a full seven months of being; a long period of existence for insects, which are creatures subject to so many contingencies, that their lives appear to be commonly but brief, and the race continued by successive productions. All these water creatures must be endowed with much perception. Cold as this element is in early spring, when the ice of winter is hardly dissolved, and the fluid only 6 or 7 degrees above freezing, yet they become immediately sensible of this temperature, and are excited to animation and the vocations of their being. I have never observed the larvæ of this creature in any state. When they retire in the autumn, these insects appear of a uniform size, and emerging in the spring they are all apparently full grown, and during the summer none of smaller dimensions associate with the family parties. This plain, tiny, gliding water-flea seems a very unlikely creature to arrest our young attentions; but the boy with his angle has not often much to engage his notice; and the social, active parties of this nimble swimmer, presenting themselves at these periods of vacancy, become insensibly familiar to his sight, and by many of us are not observed in after life without recalling former hours, scenes of perhaps less anxious days: for trifles like these, by reason of some association, are often remembered, when things of greater moment pass off, and leave no trace upon our mind.

July 29.—We frequently notice in our evening walks the murmuring passage, and are often stricken by the heedless flight, of the great dorr beetle (scarabæus stercorarius), clocks, as the boys call them. But this evening my attention was called to them in particular by the constant passing of such a number as to constitute something like a little stream; and I was led to search into the object of their direct flight, as in general it is irregular and seemingly inquisitive. I soon found that they dropped on some recent nuisance: but what powers of perception must these creatures possess, drawn from all distances and directions by the very little fetor, which in such a calm evening could be diffused around! and by what inconceivable means could odors reach this beetle in such a manner as to rouse so inert an insect into action! But it is appointed one of the great scavengers of the earth, and marvellously endowed with powers of sensation, and means of effecting this purpose of its being. Exquisitely fabricated as it is to receive impressions, yet probably it is not more highly gifted than any of the other innumerable creatures, that wing their way around us, or creep about our path, though by this perceptible faculty, thus “dimly seen,” it excites our wonder and surprise. “How wondrous then the whole!”

This creature affords us a good example of that extraordinary artifice, to which some insects have recourse upon the apprehension of danger, the counterfeiting of death. The dorr, with a violent and noisy flight, proceeds on its way, or circles around with an apparent fearlessness of harm; yet the instant it is touched, or interrupted in its progress, though in no way injured, it will immediately fall to the ground, generally prostrate on its back, its limbs extended, stiff, and seemingly devoid of life, and suffering itself to be handled without manifesting any signs of animation. In time, finding no harm ensues, it resumes its former state. If our conjectures be correct, that the object of this stratagem is to preserve its life, it is difficult to comprehend how far it can be successful. Several birds feed on it, as we observed; and that others do so likewise is evident from their castings. Of these, the owl and the nightjar catch it when on the wing; and the crows, rooks, magpies, &c., seem to have no hesitation in picking it to pieces, as well as all the other beetles, that put on the semblance of death, in whatever state they find them. One or two beasts, it is said, when captured, feign death. With these exceptions, we remember none of the other orders of creation, that have recourse to such an expedient upon any emergency; but with insects it is by no means an uncommon procedure, most probably resorted to by them for a motive we are not fully acquainted with, and which is in all likelihood attended with the success it was designed to effect.

The perfect cleanliness of these creatures is a very notable circumstance, when we consider that nearly their whole lives are passed in burrowing in the earth, and removing nuisances; yet such is the admirable polish of their coating and limbs, that we very seldom find any soil adhering to them. The meloe, and some of the scarabæi, upon first emerging from their winter’s retreat, are commonly found with earth clinging to them; but the removal of this is one of the first operations of the creature; and all the beetle race, the chief occupation of which is crawling about the soil, and such dirty employs, are notwithstanding remarkable for the glossiness of their covering, and freedom from defilements of any kind. But purity of vesture seems to be a principal precept of nature, and observable throughout creation. Fishes, from the nature of the element in which they reside, can contract but little impurity. Birds are unceasingly attentive to neatness and lustration of their plumage. All the slug race, though covered with slimy matter calculated to collect extraneous things, and reptiles, are perfectly free from soil. The fur and hair of beasts in a state of liberty and health is never filthy, or sullied with dirt. Some birds roll themselves in dust, and occasionally, particularly beasts, cover themselves with mire; but this is not from any liking or inclination for such things, but to free themselves from annoyances, or to prevent the bites of insects. Whether birds in preening, and beasts in dressing themselves, be directed by any instinctive faculty, we know not; but they evidently derive pleasure from the operation, and thus this feeling of enjoyment, even if the sole motive, becomes to them an essential source of comfort and of health.

It may be noted probably by some, how frequently I recur to the causes and objects of the faculties, manners, and tendencies of animate and inanimate things. This recurrence springs from no cavil at the wisdom, no suspicion of the fitness of the appointment, nor, I trust, from any excitement to presumptuous pryings into paths which are in the great deep, and not to be searched out; but are humbly indulged, from the pleasure which the contemplation of perfect wisdom, even in a state of ignorance, affords; and if by any consideration we can advance one point nearer to the comprehension of what is hidden, we infinitely increase our satisfaction and delight.

May 24, 1827.—Abundance of cockchaffers (melolantha vulgaris) are flying about, yet by no means in the profusion of some years. How much at times the interest of man and the wild creatures about him are at variance! Those that are domesticated and precluded from obtaining food but by his permission, have their welfare in part identified with his—they may share in his abundance, or pine from his parsimony; but the independents of the field are differently circumstanced. The appearance of these chaffers, in any numbers, is very uncertain and partial, but in those summers when they abound, very extensive injuries frequently ensue. In the grub state, they will entirely destroy the pastures where they inhabit, by consuming the roots of the grasses; acres and fields are deprived of their produce, becoming brown as stubbles, with only a sprig or tuft of green useless vegetation observable in them; the grain crop likewise totally fails when the larvæ of this chaffer feeds in the field. Upon assuming their winged state, they devour the foliage of the oak and other trees so effectually, that entire copses may be seen early in June defoliated by their depredations. So much for their injury to man: but now the feast of the wilding commences—the plow in April dislodges multitudes of these long white grubs. Dogs then seek them eagerly to eat, but they seem to be surfeited by the food; for, though fattened at first, they afterwards become diseased, and lose their hair. Rooks and crows are running over the ridges, busily seeking for this larvæ; the swine find it out, and come in for their share, and having finished here, they commence grubbing in the grass lands. The insect now soon takes wing, and then every tree in the wood or the brake becomes a scene of plunder and delight to all the train from the rookery—the cats will eat him—every sparrow that flies by has a chaffer in its mouth, captured on the wing or snatched from the spray, and now to be pecked to pieces on the ground—the thrush feasts too, and all the poultry in the yard are running after chaffers, or chasing each other for the prize; and thus this insect supplies in one state or another a general feast to many.

Surrounded as we are by wonders of every kind, and existing only by a miraculous concurrence of events, admiration seems the natural avocation of our being; nor is it easy to pronounce amidst such a creation what is most wonderful. But few things appear more incomprehensible than the constant production and reabsorption of matter, impressed upon us even by these very dorrs. An animal falls to the ground and dies; myriads of creatures are now summoned by a call, by an impulse of which we have no perception, to remove it, and prepare it for a new combination; chemical agencies, fermentation, and solution, immediately commence their actions to separate the parts, and in a short time, of all this great body, nothing remains but the framework or bones, perhaps a little hair or some wool, and all the rest is departed we know not whither! Worms and insects have done their parts; the earth has received a portion, and the rest, converted into gases, and exhalable matters, has dispersed all over the region, which, received into vegetable circulation, is again separated and changed, becomes modified anew, and nourishes that which is to continue the future generations of life. The petal of the rose; the pulp of the peach; the azure and the gold on the wing of the insect; all the various productions of the animal and vegetable world; the very salts and compounds of the soil, are but the changes some other matters have undergone, which have circulated through innumerable channels since the first production of all things, and no particle been lost; bearing in mind this assured truth, that all these combinations have not been effected by chance or peculiarity of circumstances, but by the predetermination of an Almighty Intelligence, who sees the station, progress, and final destination of an atom, what an infinity of power and intellective spirit does this point out! an omnipotence, which the bodied minds of us poor creatures cannot conceive. Truly may we say, “who can find out the Almighty to perfection?”

Our extensive cultivation of the potato furnishes us annually with several specimens of that fine animal the death’s-head moth (acherontia atropos), and in some years I have had as many as eight brought me in the larva or chrysalis state. Their changes are very uncertain. I have had the larva change to a chrysalis in July, and produce the moth in October; but generally the aurelia remains unchanged till the ensuing summer. The larvæ or caterpillars, “strange ungainly beasts,” as some of our peasantry call them, excite constant attention when seen, by their extraordinary size and uncommon mien, with horns and tail, being not unusually five inches in length, and as thick as a finger. This creature was formerly considered as one of our rarest insects, and doubtful if truly indigenous; but for the last twenty years, from the profuse cultivation of the potato, is become not very uncommon in divers places. Many insects are now certainly found in England, which former collectors, indefatigable as they were, did not know that we possessed; while others again have been lost to us moderns. Some probably might be introduced with the numerous exotic plants recently imported, or this particular food may have tended to favor the increase of rarely existent natives; but how such a creature as this could have been brought with any plant is quite beyond comprehension. We may import continental varieties of potatoes, but the death’s-head moth we have never observed to have any connexion with the tuber itself, or inclination for it. As certain soils will produce plants by exposure to the sun’s rays, or by aid of peculiar manures, when no pre-existent root or germ could rationally be supposed to exist; so will peculiar and long intervening seasons give birth to insects from causes not to be divined. We may perhaps conclude, that some concurrence produced this sphinx, and then its favorite food, the potato plant, nourished it, to the augmentation of its species.

Superstition has been particularly active in suggesting causes of alarm from the insect world; and where man should have seen only beauty and wisdom, he has often found terror and dismay. The yellow and brown tailed moths, the deathwatch, our snails, as mentioned in p. 231, and many others, have all been the subjects of his fears; but the dread excited in England by the appearance, noises, or increase of insects, are petty apprehensions, when compared with the horror that the presence of this acherontia occasions to some of the more fanciful and superstitious natives of northern Europe, maintainers of the wildest conceptions. A letter is now before me from a correspondent in German Poland, where this insect is a common creature, and so abounded in 1824, that my informer collected fifty of them in the potato-fields of his village, where they call them the “death’s-head phantom,” the “wandering death-bird,” &c. The markings on its back represent to these fertile imaginations the head of a perfect skeleton, with the limb bones crossed beneath; its cry becomes the voice of anguish, the moaning of a child, the signal of grief; it is regarded not as the creation of a benevolent being, but the device of evil spirits, spirits enemies to man, conceived and fabricated in the dark; and the very shining of its eyes is thought to represent the fiery element whence it is supposed to have proceeded. Flying into their apartments in the evening, it at times extinguishes the light, foretelling war, pestilence, hunger, death to man and beast. We pity, rather than ridicule these fears; their consequences being painful anxiety of mind and suffering of body. However, it seems these vain imaginations are flitting away before the light of reason and experience. In Germany as in England, they were first observed on the jasmine, but now exclusively upon the potato, though they will enter the bee-hives, to feed on the honey found in them. This insect has been thought to be peculiarly gifted in having a voice, and squeaking like a mouse, when handled or disturbed; but in truth no insect that we know of has the requisite organs to produce a genuine voice. They emit sounds by other means, probably all external. The grasshopper and the cricket race effect their well-known and often wearisome chirpings by grating their spiny thighs against their rigid wings; and this acherontia atropos appears to produce the noise it at times makes, which reminds us of the spring call of the rail or corncrake, by scratching its mandible, or the instrument that it perforates with, against its horny chest. The object of this noise is apparently a mere sexual call. Heavy and unwieldly creatures, they travel badly, and from the same cause fly badly and with labor; and as they commonly hide themselves deep in the foliage and obscurity, without some such signal of their presence a meeting of the parties would seldom be accomplished.

Another of the ravenous creatures that infest our pools is the great water-beetle (ditiscus marginalis); and perhaps it is the most ferocious of any of them, being adapted by every provision for a life of rapine, endued with great muscular power, armed with a thick and horny case over its body, and having its eyes large to observe all the creatures about it, and powerful mandibles to seize and reduce them to fragments. It riots on the polyphemus of the pool; and having thinned its herd in one place, is supplied with wings to effect a removal to a fold better furnished. It even eats the young of the frog; and its bite is so powerful, as to be painfully felt by the hand that holds it a captive, though defended by a glove. In the larvæ state it is almost equally destructive; it swims admirably; its hinder legs are long and brawny, beside being aided by a fringe of hairs, so that they are powerful oars to propel its body with celerity and ease. Nor must we omit a peculiarity attending the constitution of this beetle, which marks it as a creature especially endowed for the station in which it is placed. Multitudes of insects exist in the larva state for a certain space of time in water, and, having accomplished a given period in this state perfecting their forms, they take wings and become aërial creatures, after which a return to the element whence they sprang would be death to them. But this beetle, when it has passed from the larva state and obtained its wings, still lives in that water which nourished it to this state of perfection, without any inconvenience, as long as it suits its inclination; when weary of this place, or its food becoming scarce, it wings its way to another pool, into which it immediately plunges, and recommences its life of rapine. Having deposited its eggs in autumn, we suppose it to die in the winter; yet many may survive this season, and, arising from the mud in the spring, be undistinguished from the recently perfected larvæ. Such little notices and indications of the habits of these obscure creatures, though certainly unimportant, are not perhaps wholly unprofitable; for we so darkly see our way, and proceed so slowly in acquiring intelligence of the paths of nature, that nothing should be considered as beneath regard that we meet with in them, and every advancing step must elevate the mind, as it affords additional knowledge of the solicitude and provision of the great Architect of creation in the appointment and endowment of his creatures; since, though we are very rarely able to comprehend even the object of existence, we see sufficient to convince us, that such care and such powers were not bestowed except for some wise and good purpose. It seems hardly possible that mankind can ever obtain anything approaching to the comprehension of the motives of Providence, because they have not, as far as is apparent to us, individual and separate bearings, but are connecting and in concordance with a series of influences, and consequently the whole should be seen, fitly to understand a part; and this mighty mechanism what human mind can embrace? Heaven metes out to man by degrees something of its laws and ordinances; but no life, no period, can exhaust that store of hidden wisdom, by which these mandates have been decreed, every little transitory view that we obtain should be received with gratitude as an advance in knowledge, a progress in the wisdom of Him who hath ordained all things in truth.

The eye of the naturalist, prying about in places where those of indifferent persons are rarely fixed, sees many things, that others do not notice, or observe without interest, from forming no connexion with any previous subject of pursuit. Few perhaps would stay to inspect the clay hairworm (gordius argillaceus), yet it is a very curious creature. We find it at the bottoms of drains and ditches, chiefly in the spring of the year. Its color is a pale yellow; and it appears like some long vegetable fibre, or root, coiled up and twisted together. The whole body of the animal consists of numerous annulations, or rings, by means of which it has the power of contracting its substance, as it has likewise of extending it, until it becomes nearly a foot in length, and smooth as a wire. The extreme points are transparent and tapering, formed of apparently harder materials than the body. The designation of most of our small land and water creatures, in the economy of creation, is very obscure; and owing to the places they frequent, and the secrecy of their actions, amidst mud and vegetation, we have little opportunity of becoming acquainted with their habits. This hairworm, however, is rather less mysterious in its movements than some others; and there is cause to suppose that its chief occupation is that of forming perforations and openings in clayey soils, admitting by this means water to pervade the mass, and open it; the finer roots of vegetables then find entrance, and part it yet more, or decay in it, and meliorate and fertilize the substance.

Wonderful as all the appointments and endowments of insects are, there is no part of their economy more extraordinary than the infinite variety of forms and materials to which they have recourse in the fabrication of their nests; and, as far as we can comprehend, their expediency for the various purposes required. Among those, with which I am acquainted, none pleases me more than that of a solitary wasp (vespa campanaria), which occasionally visits us here. It is not a common insect; but I have met with their nests. One was fixed beneath a piece of oak bark, placed in a pile; another was pendent in the hollow of a bank of earth. The materials, which composed these abodes, seemed to be articles scraped or torn from the dry parts of the willow, sallow, or some such soft wood, and cemented again by animal glue, very similar in texture to that provided by the common wasp, which makes great use of the halfdecayed wood of the ash, and will penetrate through crevices in the bark, to abrade away the dry wood beneath. They seem to have but small families, ten or twelve cells only being provided. These are situate at the bottom of an egg-shaped cup, contracted at the lower end, where an orifice is left for the entrance. This again is covered, in the part where the cells are placed, by a loose hood, or shed, extending about halfway down the inner one. The pendent situation of the whole, and this external hood, round which the air has a free circulation, are admirably contrived for securing the cells from injury by water. The nest, when hanging in its proper situation, is like the commencement of some paper- work flower, and can never be observed but with admiration at the elegance of its structure; and the unusual appearance of the whole must excite the attention of the most incurious observer of such things.

Every-day events manifest to very superficial observation, that no created being, from the monster of the ocean, “that makes the deep boil like a pot of ointment,” to the insect that feebly creeps on the ground, exists free from the persecutions or annoyance of another. Some may be subject to fewer injuries than others, but none are wholly exempt: the strong assail by power, and become assaulted themselves by the minute or weak. This year (1826) the hornet (vespa crabro) abounded with us in unusual numbers, and afforded constant evidence of its power and voracity, that could not have been exceeded by any ravenous beast. In our gardens the imperious murmur of four or five of them at a time might be frequently heard about our fruit trees. They would occasionally extract the sweet liquor from the gage, or other rich plums; but the prime object of their visit was to seize the wasps, that frequented the same places. This they not only did when the creature was feeding on the fruit, but would hawk after them when on the wing; capture them with a facility, to which their heavy flight seemed unequal; bear them to some neighboring plant, and there feed on the insect, which seemed perfectly overpowered by the might of the hornet. The first operation was to snip off the head, then to cut away the lower part by the waist; and, when near, we could hear them shearing away the outer coat from the body, and crushing it with their strong mandibles; sometimes devouring it, but generally only sucking the juices it contained. Their avidity for this sort of food is very manifest when the grape ripens on the wall: being commonly the only remaining fruit, the wasp abounds there; the hornets flock to the prey, and we may see them in constant progress, bearing their victims from the bunches. The wasp itself seizes the house fly; but this seems rather the display of wanton power than for food, as it bears the fly about with it for a length of time, and drops it unconsumed. The fly, in its turn, is conducive after its manner to the death of many an animal. We know not any insect that destroys the hornet; but its power and being are terminated by some very effective agent, as in particular years it is almost unknown. Though we may not often perceive the means by which certain races are reduced in number, more than their multiplication effected, yet we are frequently sensible that it is accomplished.

I do not recollect any creature less obnoxious to harm than the common snail (helix aspersa) of our gardens. A sad persevering depredator and mangler it is; and when we catch it at its banquet on our walls, it can expect no reprieve from our hands. But our captures are partial and temporary; and, secured in its strong shell, it seems safe from external dangers; yet its time comes and one weak bird destroys it in great numbers. In the winter season, the common song-thrush feeds sparingly upon the berries of the white thorn, and the hedge fruits, but passes a great portion of its time at the bottoms of ditches, seeking for the smaller species of snails (helix hortensis and hel. nemoralis), which it draws out from the old stumps of the fence with unwearied perseverance, dashing their shells to pieces on a stone; and we frequently see it escaping from the hedge bank with its prize, which no little intimidation induces it to relinquish. The larger kind at this season are beyond its power readily to obtain; for as the cold weather advances, they congregate in clusters behind some old tree, or against a sheltered wall, fixing the openings of their shells against each other, or on the substance beneath, and adhering so firmly in a mass, that the thrush cannot by any means draw them wholly, or singly, from their asylum. In the warmer portion of the year, they rest separate, and adhere but slightly; and should the summer be a dry one, the bird makes ample amends for the disappointment in winter, intrudes its bill under the margin of the opening, detaches them from their hold, and destroys them in great numbers. In the summers of 1825 and 1826, both hot and dry ones, necessity rendered the thrush unusually assiduous in its pursuits; and every large stone in the lane, or under the old hedge, was strewed with the fragments of its banquet. This has more than once reminded me of the fable of the “Four Bulls;” united invincible, when separated an easy prey; but, with the exception of this season, and this bird, I know no casualty to which the garden snail is exposed.

Ignorant as we are of the scope, limitation, and even existence, of certain faculties in animals, we can frequently do little more than conjecture the means whereby they perform many of the functions of life. This ignorance leads us naturally at times to refer these powers to the agency of senses like our own; but, in most instances, probably without any foundation in truth. No creature seems less qualified to commit the depredations which it does, than the garden snail. We grieve to see our fruit mangled and disfigured by these creatures, but cannot readily comprehend by what means they obtain the knowledge that its maturity is approaching—though we find that they must be endued with some faculty capable of accomplishing the purpose; for no sooner does a plum, a fig, a nectarine, or other fruit, begin to ripen on the wall, and long before any sensible odor can be diffused from it, even before an experienced eye can detect the approach to maturity, than those creatures, the slug and the snail, will advance from their asylums, though remotely situate, and proceed by very direct paths to the object. This cannot probably be by the guidance of any known faculty. Eyesight was once considered to be situate on the summit of their horns; but this is now known to be erroneous, and we do not know that they have any vision. The acoustic organ of worms and insects is unknown; and it is not by any means ascertained that these creatures ever hear. If they possess the faculty of smelling, in them it must be a very exquisite sense, beyond any delicacy we can comprehend. Thus, excluding human means of comprehension, which appear inadequate, we more reasonably conclude them to be endowed with intelligences for effecting intentions, of which we have no perception, and which we have no capacity for defining. The contemplative man finds pleasure in viewing the ways and artifices of creatures to accomplish a purpose, though he knows not the directing means; and it fortifies the convictions of the believer, by giving him fresh evidences of the universal superintendence of his Maker, that even the slug and the snail, which are arranged so low in the scale of creation, are yet, equally with all, the object of his benevolence and care.

Connected with this subject of snails, a circumstance that took place in this neighborhood is brought to my remembrance, which discovered yet latent in a few of us, notwithstanding our boasted enlightenment, some leaven of the superstition of darker ages; and that any occurrence, not the event of every coming day, may be made a subject of wonder by the ignorant, and a means for the artful to deceive the credulous. A little banded snail (helix virgata) is a very common species on most of our arid, maritime pastures, and the sheep-downs of many inland places. It happened, from some unknown cause, that those inhabiting a dry field in an adjoining parish were in one season, a few years ago, greatly increased, so as to become an object of notice to a few, then to more, till at length this accumulation was noised about as a supernatural event. The field was visited by hundreds daily from neighboring villages and distant towns. People who could not attend purchased the snails at a half-penny each; and there were persons who made five shillings a day by the sale of them. As this increase of the creature was not certainly to be accounted for, some had the impudence to assert that they had witnessed their fall from the clouds; and many declared their belief that some great public or private misfortune was indicated by it. The proprietor of the field being supposed not to maintain the same sentiments as the commonalty upon a political circumstance, which at that moment greatly agitated the country, it was considered as a manifestation of heavenly displeasure, precursive of malady, misfortune, death. However, autumn came, these snails retired to their holes in the banks, and the worthy man lived on,—and long may he live, esteemed and respected by all, unscathed by snails or misfortunes.

Little obnoxious to injury as this garden snail appears to be, there is another creature, and that a very important one in the operations of nature, that is surrounded by dangers, harassed, pursued unceasingly, and becomes the prey of all: the common earth-worm (lumbricus terrestris). This animal, destined to be the natural manurer of the soil, and the ready indicator of an improved staple, consumes on the surface of the ground, where they soon would be injurious, the softer parts of decayed vegetable matters, and conveys into the soil the more woody fibres, where they moulder, and become reduced to a simple nutriment, fitting for living vegetation. The parts consumed by them are soon returned to the surface, whence, dissolved by frosts, and scattered by rains they circulate again in the plants of the soil,

“Death still producing life.”

Thus eminently serviceable as the worm is, it yet becomes the prey of various orders of the animal creation, and perhaps is a solitary example of an individual race being subjected to universal destruction. The very emmet seizes it when disabled, and bears it away as its prize: it constitutes throughout the year the food of many birds; fishes devour it greedily; the hedgehog eats it; the mole pursues it unceasingly in the pastures, along the moist bottoms of ditches, and burrows after it through the banks of hedges, to which it retires in dry seasons: secured as the worm appears to be by its residence in the earth from the capture of creatures inhabiting a different element, yet many aquatic animals seem well acquainted with it, and prey on it as a natural food, whenever it falls in their way; frogs eat it; and even the great water-beetle (ditiscus marginalis) I have known to seize it when the bait of the angler, and it has been drawn up by the hook. Yet notwithstanding this prodigious destruction of the animal, its increase is fully commensurate to its consumption, as if ordained the appointed food of all; and Reaumur computes, though from what data it is difficult to conjecture, that the number of worms lodged in the bosom of the earth exceeds that of the grains of all kinds of corn collected by man.

Worms, generally speaking, are tender creatures, and water remaining over their haunts for a few days drowns them; they easily become frozen, when a mortification commences at some part, which gradually consumes the whole substance, and we find them on the surface a mucilaginous mass: and their retiring deeper in the soil is no bad indication of approaching cold weather; but no sooner is the frost out of the earth, than they approach the surface to feed on decayed vegetable matter. Greatly beneficial as these creatures are, by drawing leaves and decayed matters into the earth, where their dissolution is accomplished, yet they are sad tormentors to us gardeners, and occasion the loss of more young plants than even the slug, by drawing in the leaf, which throws out the root; so that in the morning we find our nursling inverted. It is the same propensity, or ordination, for removing decayed matters, that influences them in these actions; as they are the faded leaves that are seized by them, such as newly removed plants present before the root draws nutriment from the earth. Even stones of some magnitude are at times drawn over their holes. The horticulturist perhaps encounters more mortification and disappointment than any other laborer upon the earth from insects, elementary severity, the slug, and the worm; yet, if the depredations of this last creature do at times excite a little of our irascibility, we must still remember the nightly labors, and extensive services, that are performed for the agriculturist by this scavenger of the earth, and manurer of the soil.

Besides, worms are essentially useful in draining our lands from superfluous moisture, which in many cases, without their agency, would be detained upon or near the surface of the earth, chilling and deteriorating our pastures. A few inches of soil, resting upon a substratum of clay, would commonly, without some natural or artificial drainage, be soaked with water after heavy rains, and thus become a bog, or produce coarse water herbage rather than good grasses; but these worms greatly facilitate the passage of the water by draining horizontally along the bed of clay, and aid the emission of the water by this means, as I have often observed in the trenches, which we cut in our retentive soils, numerous worm-casts on their sides a few days after they had been made, being the exits of the horizontal runs, and through these the water drains into the trenches, and runs off. I do not assert the water would not in any case be discharged without the agency of worms; but that the passages which they make expedite it, which, in situations where the operation would be subjected to delay from the position of the ground, or the under stratum, is of infinite advantage. Thus the soil is not only rendered firm, allowing the admission of cattle, but the good herbage, which the long residence of water would vitiate or destroy, is saved from injury, and the aquatic and useless plants starved or checked in their growth; but after great gluts of rain, when the supply of water is greater than can be speedily carried off, it becomes stagnant, and those worms, which cannot burrow beyond its influence, soon perish, and we lose the benefit of these very beneficial creatures. Drainage is therefore one of the most important operations in our agricultural concerns. As by irrigation we turn a quantity of nutritive water over our lands, or by reason of its higher temperature foster the growth of grasses; so, by draining cold and superfluous moisture off, we promote the growth of valuable vegetation. I would advocate the cause of all creatures, had I the privilege of knowing the excellency of them; not willingly assigning vague and fanciful claims to excite wonder, or manifest a base pride by any vaunt of superior observation; but when we see, blind as we are, that all things are formed in justice, mercy, truth, I would tell my tale as a man, glorying as a Christian, and bless the gracious power that permitted me to obtain this knowledge.

Residing, as I constantly do, in the country, and having been long observant of rural things, and the operations of Infinite Wisdom, through the very feeble organs with which I have been endowed, I have often thought, that we, who are daily made sensible of so many manifestations of creative power and mercy, should be more seriously disposed, more grateful for the beneficences of Providence, than those who live in societies removed from these evidences; but yet I neither know nor believe that we in any respect give greater proof of this disposition, or are more sensible of the benevolence of an overruling power, than others. The manufacturer by the combination of artful contrivances effects his purposes, and by aid of man’s wisdom brings his work to perfection; the artisan may eat his bread with all thankfulness and humility of heart, solace his labors and mitigate his fatigue by the grateful flavor and juices of fruits purchased at the stall; but he sees nothing of the machinery, the gradual elaborations of nature, nor can he be conversant with the multiplicity of influences and events, which are requisite to bring them to his hand. He who lives in the country knows that an omnipotent impulse must be constantly in action; he may till his land, and scatter his corn, but the early and latter rain must soften his furrows; the snow, as wool, must cover the soil; the hoar-frost, like ashes, lighten his glebe; the sunshine animate the sprouting shoot; and winds evaporate noxious moisture, insects and blights, that hover around, or circulate through the air, must be guided away, or our labors become abortive, or are consumed: we see the bud, the blossom, leaf, and germ, all progressively advance, to afford plenty or yield us enjoyment; we see these things accomplished by the influencing interpositions of a beneficent Providence, and in no way effected by the machinery or artifices of our own hands; and it should operate more powerfully, in disposing those who witness them to particular resignation and gratitude, than others who cannot behold them, but view the ingenuity of man as the agent and means of his prosperity; yet how it happens that this principle is not in more active operation within us, I cannot perceive.