23fi HISTORY OF BRITISH CRUSTACEA. 



innocent and harmless, subsisting upon decaying vegetable 

 and animal substances. They afford a dainty bit to domestic 

 fowls, which devour tliem with avidity, and are always scratch- 

 ing our yards in search of these more than any other article 

 of diet. This is their chief importance in an economical 

 aspect, and being so abundant they form an item of no small 

 value to the poultry-breeder, though one of which but little 

 notice is taken. In former times the species of this family 

 were highly reputed for their supposed medicinal virtues, and 

 old books upon the Materia Medica inform us that when 

 dried and pulverized ' they have a faint, disagreeable smell, 

 and a somewhat pungent, sweetish, nauseous taste, and are 

 highly celebrated in suppressions, in all kinds of obstruc- 

 tions of the bowels, in the jaundice, ague, weakness of sight, 

 and a variety of other disorders/ And the wine of Milli- 

 pedes, prepared by crushing these animals, when fresh, and 

 infusing them in ' Rhenish wine/ is spoken of as c an ad- 

 mirable cleanser of all the viscera, yielding to nothing in the 

 jaundice and obstructions of the kidneys/ In the light of 

 modern science we can impute the cures attributed to these 

 creatures only to the effect produced upon the imagina- 

 tion of the patient, and the curative powers of nature, 

 for, beyond some slight demulcent qualities, they must be 



