LIFE-HISTORY AND HABITS OF TERRESTRIAL ISOPODA 299 



reptiles. He comes to the conclusion that it belongs to the 

 Order " Pseudosuchia," where Drs Boulenger and Gadow had 

 placed OrnitJiosudms before, and thinks that it was not 

 a crawling, walking, nor jumping animal, nor was it adapted 

 for swimming, but that its short, spreading hands and long feet 

 show it well suited for climbing trees such as the Conifers, 

 Cycads, and Tree-ferns of Triassic time, and that it may have 

 possessed some kind of flying membrane, like a bat. He 

 also thinks that its skull and feet show affinities with the 

 earliest known flying reptiles, like Diniorphodon, which is 

 well figured in Professor Seeley's book, Dragons of 

 the Air. 



The largest OrnitJiosudms was about six feet long. 

 The largest SderomocJilus was about nine inches in total 

 length. In some respects it approaches birds in structure, 

 especially in its long, slender feet. If it is allied to the 

 earliest birds and also to Dimorpliodon, then the Dinosaur- 

 aviafi stem of the books can no longer be relied on, as 

 palaeontologists are now agreed that no known specialised 

 Dinosaurs can be the ancestors of birds. A Pterosaur- 

 avian stem may now be looked for, and a palaeontologist 

 like the author of Dragons of the Air would not have 

 been astonished to find it. The restored drawing of 

 Sderomochhis, which is here reproduced, is by Baron von 

 Huene. 



SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE LIFE-HISTORY 

 AND HABITS OF THE TERRESTRIAL 

 ISOPODA (WOODLICE). 



By Walter E. Collinge, M.Sc, F.L.S., F.E.S., Research Fellow of 

 the University of St Andrews, The Gatty Marine Laboratory, St 

 Andrews. 



During the past thirty years naturalists have studied nearly 

 ever)' group of animals, however seemingly insignificant and 

 uninteresting, so that at the present time we have detailed 



