Page:The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (1881).djvu/136

 three cubic centimeters. They were, therefore of small size in comparison with those often found in England; for six large castings from a field near my house averaged 16 cubic centimeters. Several species of earth-worms are common in St. Catharina in South Brazil, and Fritz Müller informs me "that in most parts of the forests and pasture-lands, the whole soil, to a depth of a quarter of a metre, looks as if it had passed repeatedly through the intestines of earth-worms, even where hardly any castings are to be seen on the surface." A gigantic but very rare species is found there, the burrows of which are sometimes even two centimeters or nearly $4⁄5$ of an inch in diameter, and which apparently penetrate the ground to a great depth.

In the dry climate of New South Wales, I hardly expected that worms would be common; but Dr. G. Krefft of Sydney, to whom I applied, after making enquiries from gardeners and others, and from his own observations, informs me that their castings abound. He sent me some collected after heavy rain, and they consisted of little pellets, about .15 inch in diameter; and the blackened