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Whatever obligations we may owe to Mr Charles Darwin as an ingenious and entertaining naturalist, he has forfeited them all by his late attempt to provide us with a new pattern of perfection in the shape of the earth-worm. He has written a whole volume in praise of that hitherto despised animal. According to Mr. Darwin, the earthworm is far more industrious and intelligent than an ant, the coral insect, and the bee; and henceforth moralists will constantly be sending us to the earth-worm. It appears that the earth-worm, who bores his way through the ground by swallowing the earth in his path, was the original inventor of the system of propelling vessels by pumping water at the bow and pumping it out again at the stern. The amount of work done by the worms in excavating the earth is enormous, but their favorite occupation is burying ruined cities. It has always been a mystery how the remains of Roman and Grecian cities have been buried seemingly without attracting the attention of man. Mr. Darwin shows that the earthworm has been the sexton of archæology. When the worms find a large stone, a fallen column, or an abandoned iron pot lying in a field, they proceed to undermine it by digging away the earth underneath it, while at the same time they bring immense quantities of earth to the surface and deposit it near the edge of the object to be buried. As a consequence, the object sinks slowly into the ground, and is covered by the earth brought to the surface by the worms, so that after a time it totally disappears. This is the way in which the ruins of antiquity have been buried, and although that we do not notice it, our houses are at this moment being buried by the earthworms.

It can be easily foreseen that the earthworm, combining, as he does, the pestilent industry of the ant with the fondness for burying things and forming new strata characteristic of the coral insect, will become more tiresome than either of the latter, and that Mr. Darwin, as his inventor will earn the lasting disapprobation of mankind.