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When the country swain, loitering along some lane, comes to a standstill to contemplate, with awe and wonder, the spectacle of a mass of the familiar "hair-eels" or "hair-worms" wriggling about in a pool, he plods on his way firmly convinced that, as he has been taught to believe, he has just witnessed the results of the transformation of some horse's hairs into living creatures.
The tracing of myths and fables is a very interesting task, and it may, therefore, form a curious study, if we endeavor to investigate very briefly a few of the popular and erroneous beliefs regarding lower animals. The belief regarding the origin of the hair-worms is both widely spread and ancient. Shakespeare tells us that
"Much, is breeding Which, like the courser's hair, hath, yet but life, And not a serpent's poison." The hair-worms certainly present the appearance of long, delicate black hairs, which move about with great activity amidst the mud of pools and ditches.
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