CENTIPEDES AND MILLIPEDES 139 



some species being so minute that one can hardly see them without 

 a pocket lens, while others are over 6 inches long. They may be 

 short and broad, with a body composed of only a few segments, or 

 long and thin, with over a hundred. The majority are dull in hue 

 rusty brown or black ; yet some foreign species are streaked with 

 vivid colours. A few are phosphorescent, leaving, as they move 

 swiftly over the ground in the darkness, a gleaming trail of light 

 in their wake. Stories have been told of gigantic centipedes over 

 a yard long, whose bite is fatal to man and beast ; but these tales 

 may be put down as travellers' yarns. 



Millipedes, on the other hand, are as a rule quiet, inoffensive 

 creatures. They have no poison claws, and are entirely vegetable 

 feeders, but for this reason they are often very destructive to crops. 

 As a means of defence they are provided with special glands 

 (commonly called " stink glands ") which secrete an exceedingly 

 disagreeable fluid. The female millipede makes a curious kind of 

 nest below the ground, composed of pellets of earth moistened 

 with the sticky fluid from her salivary glands. In this she deposits 

 her eggs, usually from about sixty to one hundred in number, 

 passing them through a small hole left in the earthen ball. She 

 then closes the opening with another pellet of earth, and takes 

 no further interest in the fate of her offspring. 



The male centipede (in some species) is given to cannibalistic 

 habits, and as soon as the female lays an egg he endeavours to 

 seize and devour it. But this unnatural desire the mother centi- 

 pede does her best to frustrate. At the end of her body she has a 

 pair of small, movable hooks ; with these she clasps the egg and 

 sets off with it as fast as she can ; then when she has outstripped 

 her mate, she quickly rolls the egg, which is covered with a sticky 

 secretion, round and round in the earth, until it has the appearance 

 of a tiny pellet of mud. Then, having in this way hidden it from 

 the voracious male, she leaves it to its fate. 



