FORKED LITHOBIUS. 



689 



attached to the bciy of a centipede. The Cermatia is carnivorous in its habits, feeding 

 upon insects and having a great predilection for spiders. A full-grown Cermatia will 

 attack even one of the large and formidable spiders of the tropics, and, safe in its 

 shelly mail, succeed in killing and devouring its foe. In the struggle it will probably 

 lose a few legs ; but the creature is in no wise fastidious about its proper complement of 

 limbs, and loses six or seven legs with perfect indifference, behaving in this respect like 

 the harvest-spider, the crane-fly, and other " lang-leggit " creatures, whose affection for 

 their limbs seem to be in inverse ratio to their length. 



The color of the Noble Cermatia is pale brown, with a yellowish line running down 

 its centre. The limbs are strongly marked with yellowish brown, green, and rings of 

 blue. It seldom exceeds two inches in length. This species is found in the East Indies 

 and in the Mauritius. 



Llthoblus rubrlctpa. 



Cermatia nobllls. 



THE second figure in the same illustration represents a myriapod belonging to another 

 family, termed the Lithobiidae. The members of this family may be known by the 

 fifteen shields upon the back and their sharp, elongated angles. They are found in 

 the open air, hiding under stones, a habit to which is due the title of the family and 

 genus. The name Lithobius is composed of two Greek words, the former signifying a 

 stone, and the latter to live. 



In this species the head is large and squared, and of a deep red color. There are 

 fourteen eyes on each side, and they are small and very black. The long antennae are 

 yellow, and the mandibles are of the same color, deepening into black at the points. 

 The general color of the body is olive-brown, the green tinge being more conspicuous in 

 some individuals than in others, and the legs are yellow. This is a small species, rather 

 less than an inch and a half in length. The figure is of the same size as the specimen 

 from which it was drawn. This species inhabits the south of Spain. 



More than twenty species of Lithobius are known, scattered over the greater part of 

 the world, some being found even in comparatively cold countries. Several of them are 

 natives of England, and one or two are very prettily colored, such as the Variegated 

 Lithobius (Lithobius variegatus) which has a double row of dark spots along its body, and 

 the Black-eyed Lithobius (Lithobius melanops), which is of a yellowish green color, with 

 an orange head, one joint of each leg of the same bright hue, and twelve large black eyes 

 on either side of the head. The Forked Lithobius (Lithobius forficatus\ is very common 



