428 Mr. Newport 07i the Class Myriapoda, Order Chilopoda. 



gether in pairs, as I have formerly stated elsewhere*, in reference to the 

 whole of the /Irticulata, after which the posterior of the two more and more 

 exceeds the anterior in extent of development the nearer the period of the 

 embryo condition approaches its termination. A few days after the young 

 Geophilus has left the tg^, it exhibits nearly all the characters of the adult. 

 In this respect it differs greatly from the individuals of otlier families of Chi- 

 lopoda. The young Geophilus, like the parent, has fourteen joints to the an- 

 tennaj, and this number is constant in all the species and genera of the family 

 that have iiitherto been discovered. It has also, as above shown, nearly as 

 many segments and pairs of legs, there being only four or five less than in the 

 adult. At all periods of growth the organs of vision are either entirely absent, 

 or consist only of a single pair of ocelli, concealed on the under surface of the 

 head immediately behind the insertion of the antennae. The labium is straight, 

 narrow, and entirely without denticulations, and is often divided by a longi- 

 tudinal suture. The mandibles are somewhat conical, with the femoral portion 

 straighter and more elongated, as compared with their size, than in the Scoh- 

 pendridce. The liead is formed of three moveable segments : the cephalic (a) 

 (Tab. XXX. figs. 3, 10 & 15.), which I have already shown (p. 288), is composed 

 of four subsegments of the embryo (fig. 3.), united as one region; the basilar 

 (b), which gives origin to the mandibles {g) and palpi ; and the subbasilar (c), 

 which bears the first pair of legs. The basilar and subbasilar are quite distinct 

 from each other in Geophilus, Gonibregmatus and Arthronomalus, but are con- 

 solidated together in Mecistocephalus, the first genus of the family, as they are 

 in the whole of the Scolopendridce. The Geophilidce reside constantly in the 

 earth, and are common in light soils. They subsist in part on succulent roots, 

 ripe fruit and decaying vegetable matter. Some of the species are gregarious, 

 at least in their hybernacula, and are found in winter coiled up in little packets 

 of six or eight each, in cavities of the earth only large enough to contain them, 

 in light rich soils that have not been disturbed for several weeks. I have con- 

 stantly seen them dug up in this state at the end of December in the hop- 

 plantations in Kent. 



The female of Arthronomalus longicomis deposits her eggs, from thirty to 

 fifty in number, in ft little packet, in a cell which she forms for them in the 



* Phil. Trans. 1843, part ii. p. 244. 



