64: 



CENTIPEDE 



CENTRAL AMERICA 



evolved centipede is a very uniform and old- 

 fashioned animal when compared with any normal 

 insect or spider. In the order itself we distinguish 

 four families ( 1 ) Scutigeridas, ( 2 ) Lithobiidee, ( 3 ) 

 Scolopendridae, ( 4 ) Geophilidse. The first of these 

 includes curious forms with compound eyes, very 

 long feelers, eight shields along the back, and 

 fifteen pairs of very long legs. The feelers and 

 the last pair of legs are longer than the, body ; 

 there are external generative appendages. In 

 Scutigera, and apparently in some other centi- 

 pedes, there are peculiar ' lung-like ' dorsal aggre- 

 gations of air-tubes opening on the back, and 

 perhaps the beginning of the ' pulmonary cham- 

 bers ' of some arachnids. Scutigera is represented 

 by about a score of species, widely distributed in 

 warm countries, and common in houses. In Litho- 

 biidoa, as in the two other families, simple eyes 

 alone are present ; there are fifteen pairs of legs, 

 antennae measuring a third or more of the body 

 length, and fifteen dorsal shields. The genus 

 Lithobius includes over one hundred species L. 

 forficatus (of a reddish-brown colour, and about 

 an inch long) is very common throughout Europe 

 and America ; our most familiar British species, 

 L. mutabilis, also very common, has the habit 

 of feigning death. The bite occasions consider- 

 able irritation, like that due to net tie- stings. 



Giant Centipede ( Scolopendra gigas ). 



The Scolopendridae have over a score of legs, 

 short many-jointed antennae, not more than 

 one-fifth of the total length of the body ; and 

 simple eyes, not over four pairs in number, or 

 altogether absent. About one hundred species are 

 known, distributed over sixteen genera. They are 

 especially at home in warm countries, where they 

 often attain large size, the Scolopendra gigas, for 

 instance, being sometimes a foot long. The poison- 

 ous bite of some of the larger forms is really 

 dangerous to man. Scolopendra is the most im- 

 portant genus. Lastly, the Geophilidae are very 

 long, worm-like centipedes, of somewhat sluggish 

 habit, with 31 to 173 pairs of legs, short feelers, 

 and no eyes. Some 22 species and 9 genera 

 have been recorded, especially abundant in warm 

 climates. Geophilus electricus and another species, 

 G. longicornis, both found in Britain, shine in 

 the dark. This is probably due to a viscid fluid 

 ex3reted all over the ventral surface. Himan- 

 tarium, found round the Mediterranean, is the 

 largest form of Geophilidse. Well-developed spin- 

 ning glands are seen in this family, and their 

 secretion cements together ova and spermatozoa. 



Distribution. The centipedes are world- wide, 

 but abound especially in warm regions. Some- 

 what unsatisfactory fossil remains have been ob- 

 tained from the American Carboniferous strata ; 

 oetter preserved possible centipedes have been got 

 irom the Solenhofen strata, but it cannot yet be 

 said with certainty that centipedes are known 

 before Tertiary times. 



Practical Import. The centipedes have some 

 direct practical importance as voracious devourers 

 of injurious insects, larvae, snails, and the like, 

 while some of the large tropical forms are knoAvn 

 in a somewhat different connection as animals 

 able to give a painful and poisonous bite. In his 

 Personal Narrative, Humboldt says he saw Indian 

 children draw large centipedes out of the ground 

 and eat them. 



Literature. Newport, Monograph of the class Myria- 

 poda, order Chilopoda (Trans. Linnsean Society, vol. 

 xix. 1845); Haase, Schlesiens Chilopoden (1880-81); 

 Latzel, Die Myriapoden Oesterreichs (1880-84). 



Centlivre, SUSANNAH, an English dramatic 

 authoress, was the daughter of a Lincolnshire 

 gentleman named Freeman, of Holbeach, and born 

 (say some authorities) in Ireland about 1667. t 

 Her early history is obscure ; but such were her wit 

 and beauty that on her arrival in London, though 

 a destitute orphan, and only sixteen years of age, 

 she won the heart of a nephew of Sir Stephen 

 Fox, who died shortly after their marriage. Her 

 second husband, an officer named Carroll, lost his 

 life in a duel. Left in extreme poverty, his widow 

 endeavoured to support herself by writing for the 

 stage, and after producing a tragedy called The 

 Perjured Husband (performed first in 1700), made 

 her appearance on the stage at Bath. She after- 

 wards married (1706) Joseph Centlivre, head- 

 cook to Queen Anne, with whom she lived happily 

 until the time of her death, December 1, 1723. 

 Her plays The Busybody ( with ' Marplot ' for 

 leading character, 1709), and A Bold Stroke for a 

 Wife (1717) are lively in their plots, and have 

 kept their place on the stage. Nineteen in all, 

 they were collected in 3 vols. 1761, with a 

 biography, and reprinted 1872. 



Centner is, with metallurgists, a weight of 

 100 lb., and it often has this value in commerce. 

 The German centner is however 50 kilogrammes or 

 110^ lb. avoirdupois; the metric or doppel centner 

 is 100 kilogrammes. The cental of the United 

 States is 100 lb. 



Cento, a town of Central Italy, 16 miles N. by 

 W. of Bologna, on a fertile plain near the Reno, 

 the birthplace of Guercino (q.v.). Pop. 4975. 



Cento* a name applied to literary trivialities 

 in the form of poems manufactured by putting 

 together distinct verses or passages of one author, 

 or of several authors, so as to make a new mean- 

 ing. After the decay of genuine poetry among 

 the Greeks, this worthless verse-manufacture came 

 into vogue, as is proved by the Homer 'o-centones 

 (ed. by Teucher, Leip. 1793), a patchwork of lines 

 taken from Homer and forming a consecutive 

 history of the fate and redemption of man. It was 

 much more common, however, among the Romans 

 in the later times of the Empire, when Virgil was 

 frequently abused in this fashion, as in the Cento 

 N^^)tial^s of Ausonius, and especially in the Cento 

 Vergilianus, constructed in the 4th century by Proba, 

 Falconia, wife of the Proconsul Adelfius, and giving, 

 in Virgil's misplaced words, an epitome of sacred 

 history. The cento was a favourite recreation in 

 the middle ages. In the 12th century a monk at 

 Tegernsee, named Metellus, contrived to make a 

 cento of spiritual hymns out of Horace and Virgil. 

 See Delepierre, Tableau de la Litterature du 

 Centon (1875). 



Central America, a name applied to that 

 part of the American continent which lies between 

 the isthmuses of Tehuantepec, Mexico, and Panama, 

 Colombia. Specifically the new Greater Republic 

 of Central America, formed by treaty at Amapala 

 in 1895 and formally recognised by President Cleve- 

 land December 23, 1896, embraces the republics of 

 Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras, with provisions 



