NATURAL ENEMIES 
83 
sects living in houses, such as house flies, small cock¬ 
roaches, and clothes moths. Years ago the writer ob¬ 
served its method of catching both Croton bugs and 
house flies upon the wall of the kitchen of a house in 
which he lived in Georgetown, D. 0. It feeds and is 
especially active at night, being seen in the daytime 
usually only when disturbed. On this occasion, with 
the late Dr. James Fletcher, the writer went to the 
pantry in the evening and saw a good-sized specimen 
of the Scutigera on the wall eating something. The 
light was turned as low as was consistent with fairly 
clear observation. The object held in its front legs 
was seen to be a small Croton bug. It was eaten with 
astonishing rapidity, but in the act of eating this speci¬ 
men a house fly was observed by the centipede, close 
to it, resting upon the wall. It instantly jumped, ap¬ 
parently with all of its legs at once, and covered the 
fly, which was thus confined as if it had been in a hen 
coop. When the Croton bug was devoured, the pair 
of legs opposite the fly seized it and passed it to the 
pair of legs immediately in front, and in succession 
it was passed up to the front legs, by which it was held 
while being devoured. So it is obvious that its great 
number of legs are of use, not only in walking, but 
in the capture of its prey. The same operation was 
repeated several times. 
The popular belief is that this little creature is very 
poisonous, and indeed it belongs to the poisonous group 
of centipedes. Very few cases are recorded, however, 
of its having bitten a human being, and it is question- 
