From Horatio Piggot 31 December 1881
20, Broadwater Down | Tunbridge Wells
31 Dec/81.
Dr Sir
I will endeavour during the course of the next Summer to forward you one of the Carnivora feeding on the Earth Worm. I consider it a larva State of a Beetle.1 The noise of suction in my judgment is not one proceeding from the Animal, but is the result of the business like way of making a tubular drain, and drawing themselves through it.
Last year I found the true wire worm fully developed dead, and on examination found that its death was caused by a parasite which turned out to be the larva of one of the Ichneumon flies, but I could get from British Museum no information.2 We had met with it before, and shall do so again:
At night time I have seen the true wireworm, three parts out of the ground, standing as it were upright, eating through stem of Carnation— The fact made a great impression upon me, as I did not think they left the ground during their five years penal servitude, but the Toad confirmed me in the observation as I have found his excrement with the true wireworm very distinctly visible imbeded in it—3
With reference to a remark in the review of your work to the effect that the Slug feeds on the Common Earth worm, I very much doubt whether he will touch a living one: I think as a general Rule a slug prefers decaying vegetable matter to the living—4 Unless it were for the help of the slug I do not know where we should be in getting rid of the refuse.— I think I can honestly say that with the exceptn. of the Primrose blossoms nibbled apparently wantonly,* by the large Red, & Black Slugs, we have never had any of our herbaceous plants injured by them, as the thrushes are my Friends—5 But in the Kitchen Garden where there are necessarily fewer Birds, from the want of cover for them, the slugs are obliged to be killed:
The way Slugs keep down the accumulation of Vegetable substances dying, and decaying, is something marvellous.
I am trying to find out what it is that causes the starch like stiffness of Everlasting Flowers as they are called is it Silienus? secretion of plant.6
Apologising for troubling with this long letter.
Believe me | Yours very truly | Horatio Piggot
Chas Darwin Esq | &c &c &c
*lying down as thick as Sparrows pick and drop them
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Summary
Slugs do no damage to his flowering plants.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-13589
- From
- Horatio Piggot
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Tunbridge Wells
- Source of text
- DAR 174: 45
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13589,” accessed on 19 October 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13589.xml