CENTIPEDES 57 



ventral surface of her body and the inwardly pointing legs. The 

 eggs or young are thus safeguarded from contact with the soil, and 

 the mother centipede maintains this position for several weeks 

 until the departure of the adolescent young (Cornwell, 1934; 

 Lawrence, 1947, 1953*). In the case oiS. dalmatica it appears that 

 the earth of the 'nest' is stuck together by some viscous fluid. 

 Early writers such as Gervais and Lucas believed that Scolopen- 

 dras were ovoviviparous but this error was later corrected by 

 Silvestri who suggested that the mistake arose as an erroneous 

 inference from the way in which S. cingulata assiduously guards 

 its eggs and young ones. 



Little exact knowledge of the breeding habits of Scolopendro- 

 morph centipedes is available, and this is partly due to the fact 

 that if the incubating mothers are disturbed they react either by 

 devouring the eggs and embryos or by deserting their brood which 

 is then attacked by fungi (Lawrence, 1947). Thus when a specimen 

 of S. angiilata was sent with her brood from Trinidad to the Lon- 

 don Zoo in 1894, on arrival only one young and the adult were 

 found, and both of them were dead. Parent centipedes feed quite 

 casually on their young and, at times, even greedily when kept 

 without food. 



Unlike that of the Diplopoda the development of centipedes 

 proceeds mainly by epimorphosis. It is not known exactly how 

 many moults are passed through by the young centipedes after 

 leaving their mother, but there must be a considerable number. 

 After leaving the brood chamber growth is continuous and gradual 

 and is chiefly concerned with increase in size and strengthening 

 of the chitinous epidermal structures, especially the mouth parts. 

 The Lithobiomorpha and Scutigeromorpha at first carry their 

 eggs, which are laid singly, in the claspers situated on the genital 

 somite, and development is initially anamorphic and later epi- 

 morphic. The first seven-legged stage of the Lithobiomorpha lasts 

 only a few hours, after which there are four ecdyses at the last of 

 which the young centipede has twelve pairs of legs. This com- 

 pletes the anamorphic stage. The epimorphic phase consists of four 

 stages, in all of which there are fifteen pairs of legs, and the sexually 

 mature adult emerges from the last one. The size of Ltthobius 

 forficatus after leaving the egg may increase from 3 to 24 mm 



