ANOTHER "CATHEDRAL OF WORMS"
In the story of the Reformation in your history you will read of a certain Cathedral of Worms and what took place there once upon a time. Here is a "cathedral of worms" as interesting to the student of nature as that famous edifice is to the historian and the architect. It is the tower-like casting of a big earthworm and was found in the Botanic Garden at Calcutta. The picture is "life-size."
Did you ever notice how big boulders in a field are frequently sunk into the ground as if dropped from a great height? It is the earthworms that help sink them in the course of their soil-making. They like the moist shelter of the stones and burrow under them. Finally the weight of the stones crushes the burrows, and so the stones sink down.
PIONEER LIFE AMONG THE EARTHWORMS
Poor soil, as every boy knows, is a poor place to look for fishworms. But you have noticed that the mounds the worm throws up on such soil are larger than those on rich soil. The reason is that the soil, being less nutritious, the worm must eat more of it and, in so doing, pulverizes and fertilizes it. But a menu of earth alone not being to the earthworm's liking, undesirable regions have fewer of these farmers working underground; and this, for the same reason that these regions are sparsely settled on the surface—it is so hard to make a living.
So the earthworms may be said to have a decided taste in landscape. They don't care for desert scenery like Gerome's picture of the lion's big front yard,[9] but they are very fond of orchards where the soil is rich and leaves are plenty. The pathways artists are fond of putting in landscapes would also probably attract the eyes of earthworms—if they had any, for the worms prefer soil a little packed, as it is in pathways, because it makes more substantial burrows. And, singularly enough, the worms also like most the very thing that the artist emphasizes to lead the eye into his picture—the border lines that define the path. It is along the edges of a pathway that you find most worms.