When my calico cat was a kitten, she played with rubber bands. Her first gifts to us as a hunter were worms. VINS recently added a worm bin to the loft area at our headquarters in Woodstock. I witnessed some activity the other day. As with many of our exhibits, the visitors comments are varied and expressive.
Worms seem to illicit strong sentiments of either attraction or repulsion.
Display text perched on top of the box explains the process of vermicomposting, or using worms to recycle food scraps, with details for creating your own bin. Even the fallen stones at Stonehenge owe their position to the workings of worms. Darwin and his sons traveled throughout England analyzing these activities. This earth forms the dark coloured, rich humus which almost everywhere covers the surface of the land with a fairly well-defined layer or mantle. Unlike the mythological fire-breathing dragon, worms nurture the earth by carving out burrows and piling up castings for fertilizer.