MYRIAPODA. 355 



The larger species live on land, particularly in the woods and sandy 

 places, and diffuse a very disagreeable odour. The smallest ones feed on 

 fruit, or the roots and leaves of esculent vegetables. Others are found 

 under the bark of trees, in moss, &c. There are two other genera, viz. 

 Polydesmus and Pottyxenus. 



FAMILY II. 



CHILOPODA. 



The antennas of the Chilopoda are more slender towards the ex- 

 tremity, and consist of fourteen joints and upwards. Their mouth 

 is composed of two mandibles furnished with a little palpiform ap- 

 pendage, which seem to have been soldered in the middle, and ter- 

 minate like the bowl of a spoon with dentated edges; of a quadrifid 

 lip, of two palpi or little feet, and of a second lip formed by a second 

 pair of feet, dilated and united at base, and terminated by a stout 

 movable hook, whose inferior extremity is perforated by a hole which 

 affords an issue to a venomous fluid. 



The body is depressed and membranous. Each of its rings is 

 covered with a coriaceous or cartilaginous plate, and most gene- 

 rally bears but a single pair of feet; the last is usually thrown back- 

 wards, and elongated into a kind of tail. The organs of respiration 

 are wholly, or partly, composed of tubular tracheae. 



These animals run very fast, are carnivorous, avoid the light, and 

 conceal themselves under stones, logs, in the ground, &c. They 

 are much dreaded by the inhabitants of hot climates, where they are 

 very large, and where their venom is possibly more active. The 

 Scolopendra morsitans is styled in the Antilles the malfaisante. 

 Some of them exhibit phosphorescent properties. 



The Chilopoda, which, in the system of Leach, form the order 

 Syngnatha, from these last characters, the nature of the respiratory 

 organs and the feet, may be thus divided: 



Some have but fifteen pairs of feet, and their body viewed from above 

 presents fewer segments than when seen from beneath. 



SCUTIGERA, Lam. 

 The body covered with eight scutelliform plates. The under part of the 



