44 



THE CORN MYRIAPOD. 



(Julus Inipressus, Say.) 



(Order Chilognatha. Family Juliad^.) 



[Feeding upon the kernels of Corn on ears which lay upon the 

 ground; a brown, nearly cylindrical, thousand-legged worm. J 



Almost every person is familiar with the brown "thousmd-legged" 

 worms which are frequently found beneath boards and in other 

 moist situations. They belong to the same branch {Articulata) as 

 insects, but to a different class (Myrlapoda) , and are commonly 

 placed between the lobsters (Crustacea) and the legless worms 

 (Vermes). They do not pass though a quiet pupa state as many 

 insects do, but remain active from the time they issue from the 

 eggs until they die of old age, or some other cause. 



The young do not cast their skins as insects do in their adoles- 

 cent stages, but increase in size by the formation of additional seg- 

 ments ; and thus the adult Myriapod always has a greater number 

 of segments than the young. 



The Myriapods— or "thousand-legged worms," as they are some- 

 times called — are readily divisible into two groups, the first contain- 

 ing those having only one pair of legs to each segment, the second 

 those having two pairs. This difference is of great economic impor- 

 tance, enabling us to separate at a glance the injurious ones from 

 the beneficial, as it has been ascertained that those which have but 

 one pair of legs to each segment are predaceous, • feeding upon 

 insects and other animals, and are hence beneficial ; while those 

 having two pairs of legs to each segment are vegetable feeders, and 

 hence injurious. 



Had the Great Creator followed a similar plan in the structure of 

 insects it would have saved a great amount of study and labor. 



The Myriapods belonging to the two groups mentioned above 

 differ from each other in their mode of development only in the fact 

 that in those which feed upon vegetable matter the new segments 

 are formed between the last segment and the one next to it, while 

 in the predaceous group the new segments are formed between any 

 two segments. 



