254 THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



of Spiders are different from those of other insects ; they ap- 

 pear as simple, shining spots, or " ocelli," and not compound 

 eyes, having a great many " ocelli " compounded into 

 one. These " ocelli " are arranged in a group of eight or 

 more, and placed on the upper part of the thorax, for 

 Spiders have no head, although generally represented 

 with one. The eggs of Spiders are generally deposited 

 in some sheltered place, fastened together and partly 

 covered with a net-work of a sort of yellow silk, very 

 much resembling the cocoon of the Silkworm. The 

 Scorpion, so terrible in appearance, and in its sting so 

 deadly, and which is sometimes a foot in length, belongs 

 to this order. It has eight legs, and a pair of claws 

 like a lobster, the body is lengthened into a sort of tail, at 

 the end of which is a claw or sting, like the poison fang of 

 a serpent, with a poison bag at its root ; its effects are 

 often fatal to man, and always so to the insects and other 

 small animals upon which the Scorpion feeds, its usual mode 

 of killing which, is to catch them with its claws and then 

 to sting them to death. The Centipede is a scarcely less 

 frightful creature ; in South America and the West Indies it 

 is sometimes found to grow to eight or ten inches in length, 

 it is of a long jointed form, with generally twenty-one 

 pairs of legs, although some have double this number ; its 

 bite is much to be dreaded, as it is poisonous, especially the 

 " Scolopendra," which have a poison gland, like the snake ; 

 in this country they are very small indeed, and are gene- 

 rally found in moist places. 



The Centipedes and Millipedes are, by some, placed 

 in the class Arachnida, but by others in a separate 

 class called "Myriopoda," divided into two orders, the 

 Chilognatha, which have rounded cylindrical bodies, and 

 generally more than one pair of legs to each segment of the 

 body, and the Chilopoda, which have a distinct flattened 

 head and but one pair of legs to each segment. 



