396 GAMMARID.E. 



days ; and Desmars, who published a long note upon 

 the subject (Melanges d'Hist. Nat. 1762, torn. i. 

 p. 217), states that the young are hatched, and escape 

 from the pouch-like scales attached to the base of the 

 legs of the females on the seventh day, after which the 

 latter immediately cast their skins. The young have 

 the curious habit of devouring their own excrement. 

 GeofTroy has also observed that the young take shelter 

 between the legs of their parents, in order to escape 

 danger ; and we have found young ones one-tenth of an 

 inch long in this position. 



Rosel states that these animals feed upon vegetable 

 matter ; but De Geer denies this, and asserts that they 

 are truly carnivorous, eating flesh and filth, whenever they 

 can get it, like cray-flsh, as well as their dead com- 

 panions, leaving not a particle unconsumed ; on giving 

 them dead flies they immediately crowded around and 

 devoured them, but were never observed to attack living 

 insects. It is not improbable, however, that like some 

 marine species, they will, in default of animal matter, 

 feed upon vegetables, perhaps in a decaying state. They 

 shed their skins in the same manner as cray-fish. One 

 moulted on the 3rd September, whilst under De Geer's 

 observation, the operation being almost instantaneous, 

 and the cast skin closing up so as exactly to resemble 

 the insect itself; but, according to our own observation, 

 it is slowly and quietly performed, the skin splitting 

 between the head and first segment of the body, and 

 between the body and the coxas of the first three or 

 four pairs of legs as shown in the vignette at p. 360. 

 When the skin is sloughed off, the head-covering, though 

 still attached to it, generally falls in an inverted 

 position, as if thrown forwards. The animals die very 

 soon if taken out of their native element. 



