POISONOUS INSECTS AND THEIR RELATIVES 413 



Sinclair, an English observer, says the effect of the poison 

 " fluid is instantaneous on the small animals which form the 

 food of the centipedes. I have, myself, watched Lithobius 

 in this country creep up to a blue-bottle fly and seize it 

 between the poison claws. One powerful nip and the 

 blue-bottle was dead, as if struck by lightning. I have 

 also seen them kill worms and also other Lithobius in the 

 same way." 



Castellani and Chalmers say the poison of centipedes 

 "causes local and general symptoms. At first there is 

 itching, but this is quickly followed by intense pain, which 

 extends all over the limb. A red spot appears at the side 

 of the bite, which enlarges and becomes black in the center 

 and sometimes there are lymphangitis and lymphadenitis. 

 The general symptoms are great mental anxiety, vomiting, 

 irregular pulse, dizziness and headaches. Small children 

 have been known to die from the effects of a sting, adults as 

 a rule recover in about twenty-four hours at most." 



In 1896 W. W. Norman made a series of experiments 

 with some Texas centipedes, Scolopendra morsitans, to 

 determine the effect of their bites on mice. 



In the first experiment, a mouse was bitten with the 

 poison jaws of the centipede at 10 a.m. The mouse 

 remained active during the day, but toward night became 

 quiet, and the next morning was dead. 



In the second experiment, a two-thirds-grown mouse 

 was bitten twice in quick succession. The animal be- 

 gan at once to die, trembled, gasped, and fell over dead. 

 Another adult mouse bitten by the centipede died the 

 following night. Other experiments on mice showed 

 that the bite when fairly made was fatal. He says there is 

 no evidence, however, to substantiate the belief that the 



