4 The Irish Naturalist. 



It will be of some interest to see the results of the taxider- 

 mist's art in attempting to reproduce Johnnie as we knew him. 

 A niche of honour is reserved for his stuffed remains in the 

 Council Room at the Gardens. 



The accompanying illustration (Plate i), which represents 

 him in a characteristic attitude, is from a photograph by Dr. 

 Birmingham, to whom we are indebted for permission to re- 

 produce it. 



THE IRISH WOOD-LICK. 



(WITH DESCRIPTIONS AND FIGURES OF AIJ, THE BRITISH 



SPECIES.) 



By R. F. Scharff, Ph.D., B.Sc. 



Everyone knows what wood-lice are, although the name is 

 not very happily chosen, or correctly descriptive, since the 

 animals so-called are not lice, nor do they generally live in 

 wood. They are Crustacea, but differ chiefly from the rest of 

 the class to which they belong in the manner in which 

 respiration is effected. On the under side of the tail, which is 

 often short and inconspicuous, are a number of delicate 

 membranous plates, which look very much like the branchia 

 or gills found in the aquatic Crustacea, but are not, like them, 

 fit for performing the office of respiration in water. Instead 

 of acting as gills, some of these plates have been transformed 

 into a very rudimentary kind of lungs, their interior being 

 furnished with canals or passages into which the atmospheric 

 air penetrates by means of minute orifices. They thus perform 

 the same function as the spiracles in insects. The seven pairs 

 of legs attached to the underside of the body are usually so 

 much alike in size and shape that the wood-lice, along with 

 many allied Crustacea living in water, have been placed among 

 the Isopoda (equal-footed Crustacea). The head, as in other 

 Crustacea, is provided with two pairs of feelers or antennae, 

 but the lower pair are so minute in the terrestrial species of 

 Isopoda as to be scarcely visible. All the Irish wood-lice, 

 except one, have well-developed compound eyes fixed at the 

 sides of the upper surface of the head. One species, however 

 ( Platyarthrzis HoffmanseggiiJ, is quite blind, and spends its 

 entire existence in the nests of ants, where it acts probably as 

 scavenger, and is, therefore, allowed to remain. But these 



