THE GREAT SEA-SLATER OR SEA-WOODLOUSE. 



631 



into the wood instead of driving oblique passages. It proceeds in a very methodical 

 manner, the tunnels being quite straight unless they happen to meet a knot, when they 

 pass round the obstacle and resume their former direction. Small as is this crustacean, 

 hardly larger indeed than a grain of rice, it is a sad pest wherever submarine timber is 

 employed, for it works with great energy, and its vast numbers quite compensate for the 

 small size of each individual. It appears to attack equally any kind of wood, though its 

 progress is slower in oak and other harder woods than in deal. Sometimes it is found 

 attacking the> same timber as the chelura. 



As with most of these creatures, the male is smaller than the female, being about one- 

 third her size. The female may be distinguished by the pouch in which the eggs and 

 afterwards the young are carried. About six or seven young are generally found in 

 the pouch. 



The Gribble is ashen grey in colour, with darker eyes. The timber into which these 

 creatures have been boring looks very like old worm-eaten furniture. The creature is 

 able to roll itself into a nearly spherical form, like the well-known pill-woodlouse. The 

 tail is composed of many segments, and the antennae are in pairs, set above each other. 



B. GREAT SKA-SLATER. Ligia oceanica. 



A. GRIBBLE. Umnfoia t&rebraiis. E, F. ARMADILLO WOODLOUSB. Armadillo mdgaris. 



WATER HOG-LOUSE. Asdlus aqu&ticui. C, D. WOODLOUSE. Porcdlio sealer. 



AT fig. B is seen a creature much resembling the common woodlouse. This is the 

 GREAT SEA-SLATER or SEA-WOODLOUSE, a species which, though extremely plentiful, is not 

 seen as often as it might be imagined, owing to its extremely retiring habits and hatred of 

 light. The Sea-slater lives on the stone and rocks of the sea-shore, and hides itself 

 carefully during the day in the crevices, its flattened body enabling it to crawl into very 

 small chinks. At early morning, however, and in the evening, these creatures may be 

 found by thousands, and any one who will take the trouble to search the rocks by the aid 

 of a "bull's-eye" lantern will find himself repaid by the vast number of nocturnal 

 animals that have ventured out of their dens. 



The female carries her young in a kind of pouch formed by the development of a 

 number of horizontal plates along the abdomen. They remain in this natural cradle for 

 some time, and even after they are able to run about, may be seen clinging to their 

 parent. Mr. Tuffen West tells me that on one occasion he picked up a very large Sea- 

 slater, but nearly let it fall again, startled by seeing four or five little ones run from the 



