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Vegetable Mould and Earth-Worms. By Charles Darwin, LL. D., F. R. S. (New York; D. Appleton & Co.; Portland: Hoyt, Fogg & Donham).

The gloomy title of this monograph seems to promise little pleasure to readers not especially interested in the natural history of the lower forms of animal and vegetable life. But a few paragraphs are enough to prove that nature's processes are never without charm. Earth-worms have helped to bury walled towns and have leveled mounds built by men; their silent mouths are never at rest; and after Mr. Darwin's account of the strange part they have played on and under the earth the reader is quite prepared for the scientist's notes upon the mental powers of worms and his estimate of their influence upon the world's history.