longitudinal involution of the walls of the intestine, by which means
an extensive absorbent surface is secured.
Worms have a well-developed circulating system. Their breathing
is effected by the skin, and so they do not possess any special
respiratory apparatus. Each individual unites the two sexes in its
own body, but two individuals pair together. The nervous system is
fairly well developed, the two nearly confluent cerebral ganglia being
situated very close to the anterior extremity of the body.
Being destitute of eyes, we would naturally conclude that worms were
quite insensible to light; but from many experiments that have been
made by Darwin, Hofmeister and others, it is evident that light
affects them, but only by its intensity and duration. It is the
anterior extremity of the body, where the cerebral ganglia lie, that is
affected, for if this part is shaded and other parts of the body are
illuminated no effect will be produced. As these animals have no eyes,
it is probable that the light passes through their skins and excites in
some manner their cerebral ganglia. When worms are employed in dragging
leaves into their burrows or in eating them, and even during the brief
intervals of rest from their labors, they either do not perceive the
light or are regardless of it, and this is even the case when the light
is concentrated upon them through a large lens. Paired individuals will
remain for an hour or two together out of their burrows, fully exposed
to the morning light, but it appears, from what some writers have said,
that a light will occasionally cause paired individuals to separate.
When a worm is suddenly illuminated and dashes into its burrow, one
is led to look at the action as a reflex one, the irritation of the
cerebral ganglia apparently causing certain muscles to contract in an
inevitable manner, without the exercise of the will or consciousness
of the animal, as though it was an automaton. But the different effect
which a light produces on different occasions, and especially the fact
that a worm when in any way occupied, no matter what set of muscles
and ganglia may be brought into play, is often regardless of light,
are antagonistic to the view of the sudden withdrawal being a simple
reflex action. With the higher animals, when close attention to some
object leads to the disregard of the impressions which other objects
must be producing upon them, we ascribe this to their attention being
then absorbed, and attention necessarily implies the presence of mind.
Although worms cannot be said to possess the power of vision, yet their
sensitiveness to light enables them to discriminate between day and
night, and thus they escape the attacks of the many diurnal animals
that would prey upon them. They are less sensitive to a moderate
radiant heat than to a bright light, as repeated experiments have
conclusively shown; and their disinclination to leave their burrows
during a frost proves that they are sensitive to a low temperature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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