whole soil, to a depth of a quarter of a metre, looks as if it had passed
repeatedly through the intestines of earth-worms, even where hardly any
castings are to be seen on the surface. A gigantic but very rare
species is found there, the burrows of which are sometimes even two
centimeters or nearly 0.8 of an inch in diameter, and which apparently
penetrate the ground to a great depth.
In the dry climate of New South Wales, I hardly expected that worms would
be common; but Dr. G. Krefft of Sydney, to whom I applied, after making
inquiries from gardeners and others, and from his own observations,
informs me that their castings abound. He sent me some collected after
heavy rain, and they consisted of little pellets, about 0.15 inch in
diameter; and the blackened sandy earth of which they were formed still
cohered with considerable tenacity.
The late Mr. John Scott of the Botanic Gardens near Calcutta made many
observations for me on worms living under the hot and humid climate of
Bengal. The castings abound almost everywhere, in jungles and in the
open ground, to a greater degree, as he thinks, than in England. After
the water has subsided from the flooded rice-fields, the whole surface
very soon becomes studded with castings a fact which much surprised Mr.
Scott, as he did not know how long worms could survive beneath water.
They cause much trouble in the Botanic garden, for some of the finest of
our lawns can be kept in anything like order only by being almost daily
rolled; if left undisturbed for a few days they become studded with large
castings. These closely resemble those described as abounding near
Nice; and they are probably the work of a species of Perich ta. They
stand up like towers, with an open passage in the centre.
[Picture: Fig. 3: A tower-like casting. Fig. 4: A casting from the
Nilgiri Mountains]
A figure of one of these castings from a photograph is here given (Fig.
3). The largest received by me was 31 2 inches in height and 1.35 inch in
diameter; another was only 3 4 inch in diameter and 23 4 in height. In the
following year, Mr. Scott measured several of the largest; one was 6
inches in height and nearly 11 2 in diameter: two others were 5 inches in
height and respectively 2 and rather more than 21 2 inches in diameter.
The average weight of the 22 castings sent to me was 35 grammes (11 4 oz.);
and one of them weighed 44.8 grammes (or 2 oz.). All these castings were
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