OF SCOLOPENDRA. 133 
probable that future observations will furnish us 
with others. The S. electrica of Linneus is not 
uncommon in Hngland, Belgium, France, etc. 
lts light is seldom seen, in consequence of its ha- 
bit of living in holes in the soil; but it is some- 
times to be met with in outhouses or crawling 
along some secluded pathway, leaving a track of 
phosphoric matter behind. It is about an inch 
and a half long, its diameter being scarcely more 
than one-tenth of an inch; its colour is a dusky 
brown, and its legs, which are one hundred and 
forty in number (seventy upon each side of the 
animal’s body), are of a yellowish hue.* 
We know very little of S. phosphorea, which 
appears to be a native of Asia. 
Some authors state that S. electrica is only 
phosphorescent when in motion, and that its heht 
cannot be discerned when the creature is at rest ; 
it is particularly brilliant, however, when the ani- 
mal is disturbed or irritated.t 
Macartney has made some extremely curious 
observations on the phosphoric properties of our 
English Scolopendra. It results from his re- 
searches that the S. electrica 1s capable of secret- 
ing a luminous fluid (like the little Crustacea ob- 
served by Hdoux and Soulezet, as I have already 
* T have already alluded to the yellow colour as being appa- 
rently so intimately connected with phosphoric phenomena. 
+ We have seen that this is the case with Noctiluca. 
