BRITISH ANNELIDS.
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being very quickly acquired by the field-worker after he has made
one or two excursions.
1. Gardens and cultivated soil, especially if "fat," will always
yield a good supply. The species usually found here has been
always termed the earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris), but we shall
find that this old aggregate term needs revision, and the various
species, forms and varieties, rearranging. The worms found in these
situations vary immensely in colour, size, shape of hinder extremity,
and in other particulars, and a good series should be secured.
2. Lawns, grass plots, pastures, and the paths through the same,
are also very productive. In the garden or field digging can be
resorted to; not so very frequently on the lawn. Here, however,
other methods can be adopted. Those naturalists who do not retire
before midnight can carry a bull's-eye on to the lawn before going
to rest, and thus secure a good supply. Others prefer to spread
an old carpet on the short sward. Nothing, in any place, succeeds
better than this. I have taken my heaviest "bags" by the side of
a stream where an old piece of sacking has been thrown, while my
friends have often told me, when it was too late to benefit by it,
what numbers of worms had accumulated under their carpets which
had been spread on the grass. The species differ in many cases
from those dug from the rich soil.
3. Manure heaps, lumps of compost, decaying leaves, lawn
grass in a state of decay, quitch and rubbish mounds on the borders
of fields and occupation roads will abundantly repay a careful
examination. Here, especially in very old manure and thoroughly
rotten vegetable matter, the brandling will lurk, while the angler's
gilt-tail, the red worm, and others will abound.
4. Next away to the stream or pond, to any spot in fact where
water is found, only let clay and iron be absent. Mineral waters do
not seem to be required by worms to keep them in health, and clay
is not necessary to keep them cool. So far as my experience goes
it is useless to look for worms here, unless there be some unusual
factor at work to entice them. In every other case the pond, ditch,
stream, gutter, will yield a golden harvest. The stones should be
overturned, the tufts of grass pulled up by the roots and carefully
examined, and the soil and debris dug up to the depth of a foot or
so for different species. The curious little square-tail will haunt the
grass roots ; the turgid worm, the mucous worm, and the green worm
will probably be found under the stones, and frequently fine speci-
mens of the ruddy worm will occur as well.
5. Nor should the woodlands be neglected. Under some species
of tree no worms seem to thrive, while under, others they multiply
amazingly. It is as well to begin by the hedgerow where leaves and
vegetable mould have accumulated, then work further in towards the
denser parts of the copse or forest. Usually the humid spots are the
best; but I have often found worms some inches under the soil in