90 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



Indies. Described by its discoverer, (Rev. L. Guilding), as a mollusc, from its slug-like 

 form, this unique animal is now found to belong to the arthropods, although possessing 

 features not belonging to other members of that division. Indeed it is said to " stand 

 absolutely alone as a kind of half-way animal between the Arthropoda and the Annelida." 

 As a very primitive type, exhibiting affinities to both groups, it possesses a special interest 

 to zoologists. The species are few in number, and are of elongated slug like shape, with 

 from seventeen to thirty-four pairs of legs; subsisting upon animal food and shunning the 

 light. 



■ The Myriapoda are stated by Mr. Sinclair in his introduction, " not to have attracted 

 much notice until comparatively recent times. Compared with insects they have been 

 but little known. The reason of this is not hard to find. The Myriapods do not exercise 

 so much direct influence on human affairs as do some other classes of animals ; for instance, 

 insects. They include no species which is of direct use to man, like the silk-worm or the 

 cochineal insect, and they are of no use to him as food." To the farmer's crops, however, 

 some species, known as wire- worms, (lulus) do considerable damage, while many of the 

 carnivorous species must, on the other hand, be of considerable assistance in destroying 

 injurious insects. Myriapods are those elongate, many-footed creatures, lurking under 

 rubbish and in dark places, which are usually called centipedes and millepedes Regarded 

 with distrust on account of the venomous bite of some of the large tropical species, their 

 appearance and habits of concealment produce in most people a decided aversion to more 

 intimate acquaintance. The author, however, gives a very pleasing summary of their 

 habits, and proves that a study of these creatures, as is true of all forms of life, however 

 repellant to the ordinary observer, is far from being devoid of interest. Our popular 

 names are not sustained on closer examination, for none of the species have nearly a 

 thousand legs, and a large proportion have far less than one hundred. The number 

 varies from nine pairs in the tiny Pauropus, to about one hundred and seventy pairs in 

 some species of Notophilus. The Myriapods have many affinities to the insects, and have 

 been classed with them by many authors. They differ from insects, as well as from the 

 other classes of arthropods, in having true, jointed legs on the posterior segments of the 

 body. Mr. Sinclair recognizes five orders, the species of which vary in length from the 

 one twenty-fifth of an inch (Pauropus) to almost a foot, as in the tropical centipedes. He 

 does not mention, however, perhaps because it is now extinct, the great centipede, de- 

 scribed in the Japanese tale of My Lord Bag-of-Rice, which inhabited Mukade yama (Centi- 

 pede Mountain) on the shores of Lake JUwa, and which was over a mile long, with exactly 

 one thousand feet on each side of its body. Some of the forms, as Glomeris, are quite 

 short and stout ; others, as lulus, have long cylindrical bodies ; while Notophilus and 

 Geophilus have the body very thin and elongated. 



Eighty pages are occupied by these interesting memoirs on Peripatus and the 

 Myriapoda, and in the third chapter Dr. Sharp introduces the Insects, and continues their 

 discussion throughout the remaining five hundred pages, in a style that proves him a 

 master of the subject, and also of its presentation to his readers. Naturally, as an 

 Entomological Society, we take a closer interest in this great jlass, into which are grouped 

 an immense assemblage of small creatures, varying to a wonderful degree in structure 

 and habits, yet having, amidst all this diversity, well-marked relations to one another. 

 To use the author's opening words "Insects form by far the larger part of the land 

 animals of the world ; they outnumber in species all the other terrestrial animals together, 

 while compared with the vertebrates, their numbers are simply enormous. * * * * 

 The largest insects scarcely exceed in bulk a mouse or a wren, while the smallest are 

 almost or quite imperceptible to the naked eye, and yet the larger part of the animal 

 matter existing on the lands of the globe is in all probability locked up in the forms of 

 insects. Taken as a whole they are the most successful of all the forms of terrestrial 

 animals. In the waters of the globe the predominance of insect life disappears. In the 

 smaller collections of water many insects find a home during a portion of their lives, and 

 some few contrive to pass their whole existence in such places ; but of larger bodies of 

 water they invade merely the fringes, and they make only the feeblest attempt at exist- 

 ence in the ocean." 



