From Edward Parfitt 31 October 1881
Devon & Exeter Institution
Oct 31st. | 1881
Dear Sir
I have just had the pleasure of reading your most instructive and excellent work on the “Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms”.1 You will I hope pardon me for making one suggestion, at page 63. quoting Hoffmester as to the use of stopping up the holes to prevent the entrance of Scolopendra’s entering them2 Hoffmester must I think have forgotten that the Scolopendras are nocturnal animals as well as worms, and it is at night that the holes are open and not closed.3 The holes are closed in the day and not in the night, and so far as my observation go it is to prevent evaporation, that the holes are stopped up in the day time, as worms cannot work except at great expendidature of the glairy exhudation from their bodies in dry wether the stopping of the holes keep up a certain degree of humidity necessary to the well being of the worms, and reducing the mucous exhudation to a minimum. I have noticed worms in dry weather having been startled from their holes probably by a mole or the jarring of the ground, come out and get so thoroughly exhausted of the mucous that they have died before they could again make way into the ground.
I am dear Sir | yours very truly | Edward Parfitt
C. Darwin Esqr
CD annotations
0.45 1. 3 3.60 3)8.15 6 2 60 120 15 3)135 (45. 12 15 blue ink
Footnotes
Bibliography
Earthworms: The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms: with observations on their habits. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1881.
Hoffmeister, Werner. 1845. Die bis jetzt bekannten Arten aus der Familie der Regenwürmer. Als Grundlage zu einer Monographie dieser Familie. Brunswick: Friedrich Vieweg and Son.
Summary
Corrects Werner Hoffmeister, cited in Earthworms, p. 63: earthworms do not block their holes to keep out Scolopendras but to prevent evaporation.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-13445
- From
- Edward Parfitt
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Devon and Exeter Institution
- Source of text
- DAR 174: 15
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13445,” accessed on 27 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13445.xml