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Oct 15/ 80

Worms (not on Heaths)

On Keston Common in the triangle between the Hayes & Keston-Mark roads, & north of the path that runs across from Holwood & wicket is a high bit of land covered with heath the ground amongst the heath being quite covered with lichen; I walked carefully over this place & also pulled up the heath & looked among the roots, & saw no trace of worms. The Holwood path divides the lower part of this bit of common into two regions, the S being chiefly gorse & fern with grass & having worm castings, the north region being the pure heath & lichen region. There is grass on both borders of the path in this part, & worm castings on both borders.

But higher up the heath vegetation is on both sides of the path & here there are no worms on the grass edging. In another place there is gorse-fern-grass vegetation in the damp bottom of the valley, & heath on the sides of the valley, & a little glade 20-25 yards long went running up into the heath; this glade had grass, fern, broom, gorse brambles, a few flowers & very little heath & was about a yard wide. It was a little lóngue of land which ought to have yielded worms running up into the worm-less vegetation. I hunted it carefully & found no castings but found them directly towards bottom of the valley at the base of the glade.

On Hayes Common where it was burnt the heath is a good deal mixed with gorse & there is much moss but not lichen; there were no worms neither on common itself or grass borders to paths. As you walk over towards Baston it gets more grassy & ferny, & at last I found one casting on the grass border of the path I infer that land fitted for Heath, whether

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becoming heath from being trampled on grass is not better for worms. — nor is fibrous great at Abinger whole generally produces Heath.