Читать книгу Intelligence in Plants and Animals онлайн

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Though in one sense semi-aquatic animals, like the other members of the great class of Annelids to which they belong, yet it cannot be denied that earth-worms are terrestrial creatures. Their exposure to the dry air of a room for a single night proves fatal to them, while on the other hand they have been kept alive for nearly four months completely submerged in water. During the summer, when the ground is dry, they penetrate to a great depth and cease to work, just as they do in winter when the ground is frozen. They are nocturnal in their habits, and may be seen crawling about in large numbers at night, but generally with their tails still inserted in their burrows. By the expansion of this part of the body, and with the aid of the short reflexed bristles with which they are armed inferiorly, they hold so securely that they can seldom be withdrawn from the ground without being torn in pieces. But during the day, except at the time of pairing, when those which inhabit adjoining burrows expose the greater part of their bodies for an hour or two in the early morning, they remain in their burrows. Sick individuals, whose illness is caused by the parasitic larvæ of a fly, must also be excepted, as they wander about during the day and die on the surface. Astonishing numbers of dead worms may sometimes be seen lying on the ground after a heavy rain succeeding dry weather, no less than a half-hundred in a space of a few square yards, but these are doubtless worms that were already sick, whose deaths were merely hastened by the ground being flooded, for if they had been drowned it is probable, from the facts already given, that they would have perished in their burrows.