TWO BOOKS ON BRITISH EARTHWORMS

BRITISH EARTHWORMS AND HOW TO IDENTIFY THEM by Hilderic Friend.
Published by The Epworth Press, circa 1920. 64 pages, b & w photos, cloth cover. Out of print.

EARTHWORMS by R.W. Sims & B.M Gerard.
Published by the Field Studies Council, 1999. 169 pages. Paperback. £21.99. ISBN 1 85 153 262 5

These two excellent books are separated by 90 or so years but they share a love and knowledge of earthworms. Annelids do not feature in the current school biology syllabus and I guess that only undergraduates in zoology, a declining minority subject, and a few dedicated amateurs will learn much about them and go on to disseminate any enthusiasm.

Worldwide there are about 6000 oligochaete species of which half are earthworms. In Britain we have only 24 or so native annelids compared with about 180 in France. It had not occurred to me that like most of our fauna this is another reflection of the brevity of the period between the final retreat of the Pleistocene ice sheets and the formation of the North Sea and the English Channel. Nor did I know that members of the earthworm family are farmed (in slurried manure) to provide protein supplements for pig food!

Identification of worms is not difficult but it does require careful and timeconsuming examination of specimens for diagnostic features. Both books are written for this, though the diagrams in Sims & Gerard are clearer and on pages opposite to text descriptions of species, which makes the task easier. Friend does not have a dichotomous key and deals with only three families whereas Sims & Gerard’s key quickly takes you to one of eight.

Sims & Gerard includes interesting information on biology, practical methods, and systematics of earthworms. Both volumes have useful glossaries, more extensive in S & G. In their long list of references S & G cite Friend 12 times with dates ranging from 1891 to 1924.

Friend must be a collector’s item. Its language seems a bit quaint, which makes it charming as well as being fit for purpose, which it still is. I suppose if I could have only one I would have to reject the older book - but reluctantly.