HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



273 



out for observation, and at last three of them met 

 a sad eud. One day I wished to shift and clean the 

 cover, and they quickly seized the opportunity to 

 escape. If they had all run in one direction, I 

 might have secured them again ; but they ran four 

 ways, and in my nervousness I only got one back 

 into the cell, minus a few joints of the antennse and 

 caudal filaments. The rest got miserably crushed. 



Fig. 185. Campodea, from the Ameri 

 April, ISJI. 



•itn Naturalist, 



and were only fit to use as food for the one I re- 

 tained. Shortly after this little escapade, my cap- 

 tive changed its skin, a process similar to what 

 takes place with many other creatures : the skin 

 burst down the middle of the thorax, on the dorsal 

 surface, and the insect wriggled itself out. The 

 specimens I am alluding to were found in a cellar 

 in London, and were just a sample of myriads that 

 the removal of an old boiler forced to seek fresh 

 quarters, 



Lcpisma sacchar'ma is the little creature known 

 to the vulgar as the "Fish-moth." It lives in old 

 houses, and is very desti'uctive to paper and books 

 in damp libraries. I have seen documents nibbled 

 in places to the thinness of tissue-paper, and with 

 numerous holes, produced from drawers where 

 their owner had placed them in a perfect state a 

 year or so before, the destruction being entirely 

 the work of the L. saccharlna. I once found a very 

 large colony in the interior of a small loaf of bread 

 which had lain unobserved in a cupboard for some 

 weeks. And I have watched them with much 

 interest (as a youngster) cunningly at dusk come 

 forth from the hearthstone, to seek the crumbs 

 under the kitchen table, and as knowingly retire in 

 the morning to the shelter of the hearthstone. 



I have kept L. saccJuirhia for prolonged periods 

 in my cork cells, and have strong suspicions that it 

 brings forth its young alive in couples, for on more 



than one occasion two small young ones, perfectly 

 destitute of scales, and of creamy whiteness, 

 have suddenly appeared, when, a few hours pre- 

 viously, I had no reason to suppose the cell had 

 other occupants than a couple of adults. Sir J. 

 Lubbock, however, has suggested to me as a 

 caution, that possibly the female is able to carry her 

 eggs about with her for some time previous to 

 their hatching. 



Kig. 186. Lepisma sacchariau, x 8. 



The colour of the Lepisma sacchurinu is of a silver- 

 grey, and it is about one-third of an inch in length. 

 The eyes are in two groups, of twelve ocelli in each, 

 situated at the sides of the head, near its junction 

 with the thorax. 



I have never seen but one British species. Two 

 others — importations from West Africa and 

 Bombay respectively — have been given me by W. T. 

 Loy, Esq., in a living state. The former was much 

 whiter than our English species, though its scales 

 were very similar ; and the latter was a speckled 

 insect, its colours being black, brown, and drab 

 without any iridescence. The scales are very beau- 

 tiful objects under high power, and different from 

 L. saccharlna. It may be in the recollection of some, 

 that the scale of Lepisma saccharlna has, with other 

 thysanurous scales, been a bone of contention of 

 late. Dr. Pigott having attacked Mr. E. Beck's 

 interpretation of its structure. We have had cor- 

 rugations, beads, and barley-sugar markings almost 

 ad nauseam. 



Petrobius is, so far as I am aware, represented in 

 Britain by only two species ; one frequenting our 

 coasts, and the other damp, stony inland places. 

 The eyes in both occupy the whole front of the 



