CENTIPEDES 405 



in size (insects, worms, snails). The foremost pair of legs are modified 

 into poison fangs, which are perforated by a canal. The Scolopendras 

 (Scolopendridce) of warm countries can inflict bites which may even prove 

 dangerous to man. 



ORDER II.: MILLIPEDES (DIPLOPODA). 



THESE are harmless creatures, living for the most part on decaying 

 vegetable matters, hence poison fangs are absent, and the organs of 

 mastication are feeble. The body is usually cylindrical, and each somite 

 carries two pairs (the first somites have only one pair) of short legs, on 

 which the animals creep along slowly. On the approach of danger they 

 behave like many other slow and defenceless creatures (examples) : viz., 

 they eject from apertures on their back drops of a fetid fluid, roll them- 

 selves up into a flat spiral or ball, and simulate death, as may be 

 observed in the Common Millipede (lulus) and the Pill Millipede 

 (Glomeris). 



CLASS III. : SPIDER-LIKE ANIMALS (ARACHNOIDEA). 



AIR-BREATHING, articulate animals ; wingless ; the head and thorax 

 usually coalescent into a single structure (cephalo-thorax), provided 

 with two pairs of jaws and carrying four pairs of legs ; legs never 

 developed on abdomen. 



ORDER I. : TRUE SPIDERS (ARANEINA). 



The Garden Spider (Epeira diademata). 



(Length male, f inch ; female, f inch.) 



A . Colour. 



The colour of this species varies from brownish-yellow to black, and 

 it is easily distinguished from the many others of our native spiders by 

 the white spots on the dorsal surface of the abdomen, which are so 

 arranged as to form a cross ; the legs are lighter coloured, with darkish 

 rings. Thus, the animal is of obscure appearance, which is in entire 

 harmony with 



B. Its Favourite Habitats, 



viz., dark bushes, trunks of trees, walls, garden-palings, etc., between 

 which it stretches its snare or web (its colour thus protects it from 

 insect-eating birds). It prefers the vicinity of water, where it finds in 

 greatest abundance its 



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