50 CENTIPEDES 



the nasal sinus or the aUmentary canal of man, into which they 

 have become accidentally introduced. On occasions they have been 

 vomited up in numbers by patients who alleged that the animals 

 were breeding inside them. There is a considerable literature on 

 the subject but its biological importance is slight. The explanation 

 probably lies in the fact that centipedes seem to exert a weird fas- 

 cination on the morbid appetites of the hysterical and insane 

 (Jackson, 1914; Shipley, 1914). 



Food and feeding habits 



Centipedes are primarily carnivorous but certain of the Geo- 

 philomorpha will on occasion feed upon plant tissues and may 

 even be positively injurious to crops if present in sufficient num- 

 bers. They also feed upon worms, and the marine Hydroschendyla 

 submarina in the Bermuda Islands is said to eat Leodicids, biting 

 them, licking up their juices and carrying off the fragments into 

 which the worms autotomise (Chamberlin, 1920). Geophilids are 

 not easy to maintain in captivity and do not readily take food under 

 laboratory conditions. Consequently our knowledge of their feed- 

 ing habits is somewhat scanty, but probably they devour a variety 

 of small soil-inhabiting Arthropoda (Brade-Birks, 1929). 



The Lithobiomorpha will occasionally feed on worms and slugs 

 too, but insects probably form their staple diet: Lithohius forficatiis 

 readily accepts flies in captivity. This species has been observed on 

 a wall at night carrying off a woodlouse in its jaws. It has also been 

 known to resort to entomologists' sugar patches for the purpose of 

 capturing the luckless insects which come for the sweets. Small 

 moths have no chance of escape, but the larger Noctuids some- 

 times succeed in tearing themselves away although it is surprising 

 how tenaciously the centipedes hold on. The Scutigeromorpha are 

 probably entirely insectivorous, but study of the literature shows 

 that the Scolopendromorpha have a wide range of diet, although in 

 many cases the precise identification of species is dubious. A par- 

 ticularly large specimen of S. gigas (possibly S. giganted) from 

 Trinidad kept for over a year in the Insect House of the Zoological 

 Society of London, fed principally on small mice which it devoured 

 with alacrity. Scolopendras have been known, in India, to kill and 

 eat small birds, while one voracious centipede {S. gigantea) was 



