trampled while setting a trap; and this occurred in a part of
Ireland where there were no moles. I have been assured by a
Volunteer that he has often seen many large earth-worms crawling
quickly about the grass, a few minutes after his company had fired
a volley with blank cartridges. The Peewit (Tringa vanellus,
Linn.) seems to know instinctively that worms will emerge if the
ground is made to tremble; for Bishop Stanley states (as I hear
from Mr. Moorhouse) that a young peewit kept in confinement used to
stand on one leg and beat the turf with the other leg until the
worms crawled out of their burrows, when they were instantly
devoured. Nevertheless, worms do not invariably leave their
burrows when the ground is made to tremble, as I know by having
beaten it with a spade, but perhaps it was beaten too violently.

The whole body of a worm is sensitive to contact. A slight puff of
air from the mouth causes an instant retreat. The glass plates
placed over the pots did not fit closely, and blowing through the
very narrow chinks thus left, often sufficed to cause a rapid
retreat. They sometimes perceived the eddies in the air caused by
quickly removing the glass plates. When a worm first comes out of
its burrow, it generally moves the much extended anterior extremity
of its body from side to side in all directions, apparently as an
organ of touch; and there is some reason to believe, as we shall
see in the next chapter, that they are thus enabled to gain a
general notion of the form of an object. Of all their senses that
of touch, including in this term the perception of a vibration,
seems much the most highly developed.

In worms the sense of smell apparently is confined to the
perception of certain odours, and is feeble. They were quite