| Painted by F. O. Sylvester. | Painted by Westman. |
THE EARTHWORM'S TASTE IN SCENERY
Two features common to both these pictures—the trees and the pathways—appeal to earthworms as well as artists, for reasons you have learned in this chapter.
The earthworm, in addition to working over and fertilizing the soil already made, actually helps make soil out of rock. He does this in two ways: (1) With acids—for, like the Little Old Man of the Rock, he is a chemist; (2) by grinding up rock in a little mill he always carries with him.
HOW THE EARTHWORM COOKS HIS MEALS
The earthworm's favorite diet is leaves and he has a way of cooking them. It is not quite like our way of cooking beet or dandelion leaves, but it answers the same purpose—it partially digests them. In glands, in his "mouth," he secretes a fluid which, like our saliva, contains an alkali. But the earthworm's alkaline solution is much stronger, and when he covers a fresh green leaf with it—as he is usually obliged to do in Summer when there are so few stale vegetables, the kind he prefers, in his market—the leaf quickly turns brown and becomes as soft as a boiled cabbage.
Of course, there are always dead leaves in the woods, and these, which even the cow with her fine digestive outfit cannot handle, are a delight to the earthworm; for he also has a much larger supply of pancreatic juice than the higher animals, and this takes care of the leaves after he has swallowed them. He swallows bit by bit; just like a nice little boy who has been taught not to bolt his food.
The acids in the earthworm's "stomach," acting on the leaves, help make other acids which remain in the soil after it has passed through the earthworm's body and help dissolve those fine grains of sand which make your bare feet so gritty when mud dries on them. And, not only that, but this coating of soil lying upon the bed rock hastens its decay; for the earthworm's burrow runs down four to six feet, sometimes farther.
Besides the soil he thus grinds up and fertilizes so well with leaf-mould—what your text-book on agriculture calls "humus"—the earthworm does a lot of useful grinding in connection with the building of his house. He begins, as we do, by digging the cellar; but there he stops, for his house is all cellar! He makes it in two ways: (1) By pushing aside the earth as he advances; (2) by swallowing earth and passing it through his body, thus making the little mounds you see on the surface.