IIARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



*73 



•are hatched. When the young millepedes make 

 their first appearance in the world, and prepare to 

 enter upon their humble but useful career, they are 

 entirely destitute of the many limbs which are 

 destined to adorn them when adult. Each also 

 bears — as a newly-hatched chicken sometimes does — 

 the two halves of its egg-shell attached to its body by 

 a filament. At a later period of their existence, they 

 are endowed with three pairs of feet, and are then 

 enabled to disencumber themselves of the egg shells. 

 They might easily be mistaken at this time for the 

 larvae of some beetle. In the further stages of their 

 development, they gradually acquire additional seg- 

 ments and additional limbs, until they finally resemble 

 in shape and size the parent form. 



One rather unpleasant peculiarity of nearly all 

 •millepedes, is their disagreeable odour, arising from 

 an acrid fluid secreted from cutaneous glands on the 

 dorsal surface of the body. The pores from which 

 the secretion exudes, are two on each segment, and 



of two Greek words, the former signifying a stone 

 and the latter to live. 



Several species of Lithobius are found in England, 

 but the commonest is Lithobius forficattts, which must 

 be known to every one who has seen stones, flower- 

 pots, or old rubbish turned over or removed. It is 

 a flat, segmented, shining, reddish-brown creature, 

 from an inch to an inch and a half in length, with a 

 pair of long jointed antennae rather redder than its 

 body, and fifteen pairs of rather yellowish legs. 

 These numerous limbs carry it very nimbly out of 

 sight if it is disturbed in its hiding-place, but it is a 

 creature of a decidedly irritable disposition, and 

 should it be captured or otherwise interfered with, 

 it does not hesitate to inflict a savage bite with its 

 sharp curved nippers. 



Most of the centipedes are chiefly carnivorous, and 

 therefore need not be feared by gardeners ; they prey 

 upon insects, worms, and other small animals, and 

 are useful in a garden to keep these within reasonable 

 numbers. One species of centipede, however, 

 though it lives generally upon the larva? of 

 insects and other soft-bodied creatures, occa- 

 sionally departs from the rule of flesh-eating 

 to join the ranks of the vegetarians ; it is not 

 proof against the temptations of a ripe peach, 

 apricot, or plum, and may be sometimes found 

 neatly coiled up in the heart of the fruit. Not 



Fig. 108. — Gcojihiliis electriais, the phosphorescent centipede. 



Fig. 109. — Jiilus terrc^tris. 



have sometimes been mistaken for stigmata. The 

 Teal stigmata are, however, placed in pairs close to 

 rhe bases of the legs. 



The millepedes belong to two families of the class 

 TVIyriapoda, and we must now turn our attention from 

 the Julidas and Glomeridae to the representatives of 

 two other families (Lithobidae and Geophilidae) of the 

 ■same class, namely the Centipedes. 



The name of centipede is misleading, like that of 

 millepede, and is commonly applied alike to the 

 above-mentioned two families, the members of which 

 differ in appearance considerably. The centipede 

 is an inhabitant of most parts of the world, and in 

 the tropics it grows to such a size as to be quite a 

 formidable creature. All the centipedes have foot- 

 jaws, or maxillipedes, armed with perforated hooks 

 communicating with poison-glands ; hence their bite 

 is always painful, and that of the large foreign species 

 produces sometimes serious effects. The Lithobidse 

 are pre-eminently dwellers under stones, and to this 

 habit of life they owe their name, which is composed 



infrequently, too, it takes advantage of the hole made 

 by a greedy slug in the side of a fine strawberry, to 

 sip the sweet juices. This little robber rejoices in a 

 name almost as long as itself; it is called Arthrono- 

 ma/us longicornis. The total length of this centipede 

 varies from two and a half to three inches ; its 

 colour is lightish yellow, the head inclining to a rusty 

 hue ; it has long hairy antennae, and from fifty-one to 

 fifty-five pairs of legs. 



The female seems to b full of solicitude for her 

 offspring, for after having laid from thirty to fifty eggs 

 in a hole in the ground, she coils herself up round them, 

 and remains in this attitude until the young hatch, 

 a period of two or three weeks. The young of 

 centipedes, like those of millepedes, do not exactly 

 resemble their parents at first, but go on acquiring 

 additional segments, or somites, and limbs, until the 

 adult form is reached. This result takes, in the case 

 of centipedes, a long time to attain, and the growing 

 process is not completed until after a series of changes 

 of skin, or "moults." 



