52 THE BRITISH WOODLICE. 



so in fact, that any of his species that happen to find him will 

 attack him and eat all his front half, rejecting, however, his now 

 hardened tail-end. 



Provided that the moulting woodlouse has survived (and in 

 captivity, to ensure this, he must be isolated), after three days 

 his jaws will be sufficiently hardened to allow of his eating, and 

 usually he first of all devours the second half of his cast skin. 

 The operation of moulting does not occupy quite so long a time 

 in the case of young examples. Specimens half-an-inch long do 

 not moult more than once in six months and show but little 

 increase in size after the process. 



Woodlice do not appear to live on either animal or vegetable 

 food alone, but adopt a mixed diet. It is, however, owing to 

 their attacks upon cultivated plants that the creatures are 

 looked upon as pests by the horticulturalist. The animals feed 

 either in the night or in the very early morning, on seedlings, 

 orchid tubers, mushrooms, or anything that comes to hand. Few 

 of the accounts, however, of their ravages, mention that the 

 crustaceans have been caught absolutely in the act of doing 

 the damage ascribed to them. Some careful inquiries have 

 nevertheless enabled us to discover several observers who 

 have watched woodlice feeding. Mr. F. V. Theobald, of Wye 

 College, and one of the students at Swanley Horticultural 

 College are among the number. The former has also given us an 

 account of the methods, out of many tried, which he has found 

 most successful for getting rid of the crustaceans. Out of doors 

 trapping with moss, sacking or horse-dung is best. In glass 

 houses, fumigation with hydro-cyanic acid gas has cleared them 

 out, and poison baits, especially potatoes cut and soaked in 

 white arsenic, have done some good. Stable manure is especially 

 favourable to these creatures, particularly when it is used " long ": 

 in this condition it should therefore be avoided. 



It is interesting to note how the w r oodlice in winter simply 

 remain where they happen to be so long as there is sufficient 

 moisture, though they are ready to run about as rapidly for a 

 time as in summer, should they happen to be disturbed. 



No doubt many points of inter-relation between woodlice 

 and other animals remain to be discovered. Mr. John W. Odell 

 tells us that on Exmoor, in the open, he found no Armadillidia, 

 though other forms occurred under nine out of every ten stones 



