STONE-TURNING— I 



By R. A. STAJG 



Illustrated from Original Photographs by JOHN A. BALLANTYNE 



MANY curious creatures live under 

 stones. Raising a stone here and 

 there we are sure to find some 

 <:entipedes — a dim-sighted tribe seeking 

 the darkness, httle known and not loved. 



The rapidity of their 

 serpentine movements is 

 quite bewildering. How 

 they do it, the order in 

 which they move tlieir 

 numerous legs, that is the 

 most puzzling thing about 

 the centipedes. With as- 

 tonishing ease they run 

 backwards tail foremost. 

 Watching one do this, we 

 see only the hindmost limbs 

 acti\'ely used. 



One of the commonest 

 kinds is the brown Litho- 

 bius, or Thirty-legs, an 

 excellent example of the 

 sense of touch developed to an uncommon 

 degree. It finds its way, seeks its food, 

 and recognises friend and foe, by means of 

 the two long thread-like sensory feelers 

 which project from the front of the head. 

 Eyes it has, more than one pair, but poorly 

 developed, very small, and difficult to see 

 — superfluous possessions to a darkness- 

 loving Lithobius so keenly touch-sensitive. 



A weU-known zoologist, who found 

 centipede life a more interesting study 

 than many people might readily suppose, 

 tells a charming story of Mother Lithobius 

 and her maternal care. The voracity 

 of her mate and his undiscriminating 

 palate are sources of great anxiety to her 

 when about to bring forth her egg. When 

 it falls out she clasps it firmly between 

 two httle hooks at the end of her body, 

 runs off with it, wets it, and rolls it 

 round and round until it is covered with 

 earth. The deception is then complete. 



and the baby safe from paternal canni- 

 balism. 



The dark brown, inch-long, worm-like 

 creature which curls itself up when dis- 

 turbed beneath a stone is the Julus, one of 



LITHOBIUS-THE THIRTY-LEGS. 

 (Magnified three diameters.) 



the millipedes ; the vegetarian relative of 

 the Lithobius. Its legs, small and dehcate, 

 are so numerous and set so close together 

 as to form a sort of motile fringe under- 

 neath the cylindrical body. The move- 

 ment is peculiar, resembling a slow 

 and graceful wave ; the legs, employed 

 in little bunches alternately, performing 

 an undulating motion passing from head 

 to tail. 



Before laying her eggs the female 

 Julus makes a little nest. She works up 

 particles of earth with her saliva, gluing 

 them together and shaping them with 

 her feet until she has formed a hollow 

 earthen sphere about the size of a large 

 pea ; the wall inside carefully smoothed, 

 outside left rough, not to be distinguished 

 from the surrounding earth. There is a 

 h<jle in the wall. She drops the minute 

 eggs through the hole, then plugs it up 

 and goes away. 



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