134 Forty-first Report on the State Museum. 



of the south of France, satisfied himself of the poisonous nature of 

 the bite of a Cermatian. 



The above authorities fully attest the poisonous character of this 

 creature, and it has also been confirmed by other writers, who might 

 be cited. There is no record, however, of its bite ever having been 

 inflicted upon a human being. In one instance brought to my 

 knowledge, harm from it was surmised. A young lady pupil, occu- 

 pying a dormitory of a boarding-school, discovered on her person, on 

 awakening, a hard, swollen, inflamed and somewhat painful spot of a 

 considerable size. While speculating on its cause, she saw one of 

 these Cermatians resting on the sloping ceiling directly over her bed. 

 Had it inflicted a bite during the night under the provocation of sud- 

 den pressure, or was its presence at the time merely accidental ? 



liife-History. 



Of this, nothing aj^pears to be recorded by our writers, and I have 

 no access, at present, to whatever may have been written of other 

 species of the genus occurring in Europe or elsewhere, of which New- 

 port, in his monograph on the Myriapoda, in 1845, has recorded and 

 described seventeen species. 



From the observation given in a preceding page of this paper, it 

 appears that the young (quite small) are to be found in the month of 

 January. Adult forms have been brought to me, as from records at 

 hand, in April, June, October, November and December, and they are 

 probably to be fovmd during every month of the year. A young 

 individual, about one-third grown, has been taken by Mr. Erastus 

 Corning, Jr., on September tweaty-ninth, and contributed to the 

 collections. 



This creature is apparently quite cleanly in its habits, as it has, on 

 different occasions been observed in the laborious and time-taking 

 operation of cleaning its many legs by passing one after another, from 

 their extreme base to the tip, through its mandibles. 



Remedy. 

 If the Cermatia should be found to occur in large and annoying 

 numbers in particular localities, it could readily be disposed of by a 

 free application to the premises of fresh pyrethrum powder. 



