i2 4 ECONOMIC ZOOLOGY AND ENTOMOLOGY 



The most familiar myriapods are the millipeds or galley 

 worms, the centipedes, geophilids, and lithobians. The milli- 

 peds are cylindrical in shape, have two pairs of legs on most 

 of the body-segments and are vegetable feeders, though some 

 may feed on dead animal matter. The galley-worms, Julus 

 spp., large, blackish, cylindrical millipeds found under stones 

 and logs and leaves in loose soil, are familiar forms. They 

 crawl slowly, and when disturbed curl up and emit a mal- 

 odorous fluid. They can easily be kept alive in shallow glass 

 vessels with a layer of earth in the bottom, and their habits 



FIG. 48. A milliped, Julus sp. (Natural size.) 



and life history may thus be studied. They should be fed 

 sliced apples, green leaves, grass, strawberries, fresh ears of 

 corn, etc. They are not poisonous and may be handled with 

 impunity. They lay their eggs in little spherical cells or nests 

 in the ground. An English species, of which the life history 

 has been studied, lays from 60 to 100 eggs at a time. The 

 eggs of this species hatch in about 12 days. 



The lithobians, centipedes and geophilids are flattened and 

 have but a single pair of legs on each body-ring. They are 

 predaceous in habit, catching and killing insects, snails, earth- 

 worms, etc. They can run rapidly, and have the first pair 

 of legs modified into a pair of poison claws, which are bent 

 forward so as to lie near the mouth. The common "skein" 

 centipede, Scutigera forceps, is yellowish and has fifteen pairs 

 of legs, long 4o-segmented antennae, and nine large and six 

 smaller dorsal segmental plates. The true centipedes, Scolo- 



