DADDY-LONG-LEGS, CENTIPEDES, AND MILLIPEDES. 127 



previously prepared by the creature in earth that is neither 

 too moist nor yet too dry. In preparing the burrow the 

 female makes use of the fluid which comes from her mouth, 

 and which enables her to stick the earth together in little 

 balls, and these she passes up from her burrow by means of 

 the little legs which grasp the pellet and convey it from one 

 pair of legs to the next pair, and so on till it is thrown 

 out of the burrow. After the burrow is completed, and the 

 eggs laid, the entrance to the nest is carefully filled up with 

 clay, or dirt, moistened with fluid from the mouth. 



117. It has been learned, in studying the development of 

 the insect proper, that the worm-like larva comes from the 

 egg with its full number of rings or segments, and that, as 

 the creature matures, some of these segments are so merged 

 into other parts, particularly with some of the caudal ones, 

 that it seems as if the perfect insect has a less number of 

 rings than the larva. In the myriapods, however, the young 

 creature as it hatches from the egg possesses only a few seg- 



FIG. 119. HIGHLY-MAGNIFIED FIGURE OP A VERY YOUNG MILLEPEDE, SHOBTLY AFTEB 



HATCHING FROM THE EGG. 



(Eeduced from a figure by Elias Metschnikoff.) 



ments, but as it grows, new segments are from time to time 

 formed near the hinder part of the body, until the creature 



