Dear Sir

With very great pleasure have I completely perused the vol you kindly sent me on “Worms”.¹ There are many interesting sections which suggest far reaching inferences & hypotheses. I have however scarcely any hope of being able to string together some which have occurred to me,—other circumstances hindering. All I can do now,—which will bespeak the careful interest of my study of the vol,—might be to give you a memo of several printers’ &c slips which you might desire to have corrected in a newer Edition. There were certainly one or 2 paragphs which I did not see the force of at first, & for my own benefit I have interlineated what I took to be the construction of the passage. It would be egotistic ill taste to name such, except to say—they are at your command, with the assumed chance of my being entirely wrong. The eloquent summary of the last chapter is very striking, &, I imagined, contains several new facts not found in the pre-going pages, particularly the first part of the last sentence on page 311.²

I have watched with great interest lately the building up of a “tower” casting in our little garden. Morning by morning it shows a new deposit of its viscid-“lava” on the summit, whence it rolls down the sides. I protected it some days ago with flower pot sticks. In spite of the recent very heavy rains, it goes on augmenting, & I think, if I sliced it fairly off the normal surface of the ground, it would measure nearly 2 inches high, & this too in spite of the loss from the rain washing part of it away every day. The distinctness of the castings on summit suggests a “colony” of worms.

I picked up a recent casting about 7 or 8 days ago. It had already hardened. I was astonished at its cohesion. The pebbly corrugation was plain & natural, bespeaking a recent casting. It withstood a comparative effort to pull its pebbles asunder. I dropped it (perhaps from a foot high) upon some hard earth in a flower pot but it did not break. I left it there. Several times subseq^tly I examined it. In spite of heavy rain it still held well together but was losing size gradually. Every disintegration of outer pebbles always revealed among the inner ones, those bits of stony fragments of which you speak. There still remains of it, a firmly bound-together accretion.

I have been a little puzzled by the different nature of the distribution of castings on a flat & on a slope. On a few square feet of front ground the castings on the level are in lines & angles &c & not all over; but on the slope the honeycombed surface is equally covered almost over its entire area. An explanation occurs to me which seems to answer one of your queries in part. It is as to their instinct in reference to burrowing at right angles (p. 270) as the shortest course for bringing up earth.³ This may be undetermined, but if they do not burrow at right angles, still, by preferring slopes they find the advantage of such an “economy” in another sense—i.e. the angle of the sloping ground being more convenient to eject earth upon than throwing it up perpendicularly as would be the case on a level.

I could not decide on the weight of evidence as to the purposes &c of plugging &c (p. 63) in my mind until I came to p. 116, where the “respiration” point (lines 11 to 13) seems to settle the argument most conclusively.⁴

Recent science & travel seems to qualify p 232 somewhat, considering Prof Ball’s recent calculations as to pre-historic “Waves of the Sea”; as also p 238, the “Vega’s” Voyage (also see Prof Plummer’s paper “Goodword’s Dec 1881) seems to establish a great deal of cosmic dust as falling in the Arctic regions.⁵

I fear, Sir, I have troubled you too much upon these little points. You must forgive me the trespass on your valuable time & permit me to remain | Yours very faithfully | J. F. Simpson

To C. Darwin Esq F.R.S. | Down, Beckenham

A postscript enclosed.

“Worms”

P.S. Mem^a of Errata &c or queries.

p. 63—par. ending “herbage” requires note of interrogation(?).

p. 72 last line but 3. Query read the reffs in both places

p. 73 line 3. ) as to Common steel needles (experimental),

not the needles of the pine leaves previously

referred to.

p 89 line 19. “apex over” (dividing)

p 110, " 15. “found here”—query at Down.

p 117 " 19 &c Par. beginning “When a worm” explains a process which has to be guessed at in reading the top par. of same page (“as soon as &c”)

p 119. dates at bottom, query referring to several years observations, or query in year 1880.

p 166. bottom. “A space was selected &c” query “The space of the first square yard was selected &c”, otherwise the implication seems to run that the two square yards were contiguous.

p 209 “The old broken walls (query “of a former edifice”) &c

p 223. Table No 8—query the thickness in this case an “average”? is not stated. (compare 39 inches as against 7 ins at opposite ends)

—Shop Leasows”; has a redundant double commas. (Excuse noting so small a point. It looks strange)

p 258. line 4. “on each of acre &c”, Q “of”

p 282 line 10 “dintintegrated” Q “t”⁶

p—line 20—“to rather lines of” &c seemed a little puzzling to find out the compared connection

p 292, last line; “on the northern &c” query the upper northern &c

p 296. line 15. “dⁱsppeared”, “i” wanting

p 312, line 6. par. beginning “They can therefore learn (but) little &c ..... world, and (yet) it is &cc. Query suggested bracketed words.

With very respectful Compliments.

2^nd P.S. | A little newspaper Extract from todays “Bayswater Chronicle” may be ventured to be enclosed & explained.⁷

A writer last week in the same columns adopted the rather questionable feeling of throwing derision upon a certain class of people who draw rather free inferences from what they read in favour of some cherished idea or persuasion. It is a trait common to all human beings according to their respective “bent” &c, & to attack it in an unseemly manner is unworthy of a scientific man. Hence arose my few lines signed “A Community of Worms”, which the Editor seems unwisely to have sent specially on. I am in no dread of any one reading the first writer’s rejoinder. It is unkind, & the arrogance he speaks of was on his side in his first letter. The only notice I take of his gratuitously uncalled for rejoinder is to tell the Editor that I do not bow down to his friend’s scientific dicta on any “infallibility” grounds, & (as he seems to be a primed geologist of the rigid Lyell school)⁸ that very recent science is tearing the old geologically computed periods into shreds.

I am of course but a very Empirical observer &c, & under such comments it is as well to be as pachydermatous as possible, with all one’s faults.

J.F.S.