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Updated: June 24, 2025
But, after all, more minute, patient, intelligent observation has been devoted to the study of Earthworms, than to the evolution, or rather the degradation, of the Sunken Section of our people.
My mum and my two younger brothers, Sameer and Milind returned to Goa soon thereafter, but I stayed on with Grandpapa in Mumbai for a few more days, since I was to proceed from there directly to Chennai where I would spend the next two and a half months in the pleasant company of spiders, earthworms and my all-time favourites, crocodiles and snakes.
Slowly, as if tentatively, the animal begins to modify some of its instincts, at first only in slight details, or to adopt new lines of action not included in its old instincts, but suited to the new emergencies. This is the dawn of intelligence. Its beginnings still remain undiscovered. Mr. Darwin believes that traces of it can be found in earthworms and other annelids.
The Drymornis, a large bird, with feet and tail like a woodpecker, climbs on tree-trunks to seek its food; but also possesses the widely-different habit of resorting to the open plain, especially after a shower, to feed on larvae and earthworms, extracting them from a depth of three or four inches beneath the surface with its immense curved probing beak.
Many other ducks have departed, but this one still swims among the floating leaves on secluded waterways. Now is the time when the woodcock rises from his swampy summer home and zigzags his way to a land where earthworms are still active.
It should be added that the writer quoted, and all others who have discussed the subject, have, so far as I know, overlooked one very important element in the fertilization produced by earthworms. I refer to the enrichment of the soil by their excreta during life, and by the decomposition of their remains when they die.
And, following the biggest brother, trotted the little girl, who from time to time left the cool furrow to run ahead and give the steers a lash of the gad she carried, or hopped to one side to keep from stepping with her bare feet upon the fat earthworms that were rolled out into the sunlight, where they were pounced upon by rivaling blackbirds circling in the rear.
His throat was very red and very hollow, and seemed ready to swallow no end of fresh raw egg and bits of raw beef and earthworms and bread soaked in milk. Not that he had to have much at a time, but he needed so very many meals a day. It was fun to feed the little fellow, because he grew so fast and because he was so comical when he called, "Kah."
Then, as the "biltong" or sun-dried meat they had made was all consumed, they were driven to every desperate expedient that is known to the starving, such as the digging up of bulbs, the boiling of grass, twigs and leaves, the catching of lizards, and so forth. I believe that they actually ate caterpillars and earthworms.
On hard ground, in a long spell of either drought or frost, it must come within measurable distance of starvation, for its only manner of procuring its food in normal surroundings is to thrust its bill deep into the soft mud in search of earthworms.
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