CENTIPEDES AND MILLIPEDES 37 



opening is not at the posterior end, but on the ventral surface 

 of the third segment behind the head ; and the antennae have 

 but seven joints. These are all slow-moving, inoffensive creatures, 

 except in so far as they possess a disagreeable odour and inflict 

 some damage on crops, and are vegetarian in their diet. Their 

 mouth appendages are adapted for biting and chewing, or, in 

 some cases, for sucking vegetable tissues. There are no weapons 

 of offence, but along the sides of the body are special " stink- 

 glands " which give a disagreeable odour, and presumably taste, 

 to the animals. The chitinous exo-skeleton is strengthened 

 with quantities of chalky matter, so that the whitened skeletons 

 of dead specimens are often found on the surface of the ground. 



One of the most common species is Julus terrestris y sometimes 

 called the " wire-worm/' but not to be confused with the larvae 

 of the " click-beetle," Elater lineatus, to which the same popular 

 term is also applied. /. terrestris can be kept captive in shallow 

 glass vessels with a layer of moist earth at the bottom, and will 

 thrive and breed if freely supplied with such food as slices of 

 apple, leaves and grass. When disturbed the animal rolls itself 

 up into a close ring. 



The breeding season is in the earlier summer months. The 

 female constructs, at some distance from the surface of the earth, 

 a hollow sphere of particles of earth glued together by the sticky 

 secretion of her salivary glands. The whole nest is about as 

 large as a hazel nut, and is rough on the outer but evenly smoothed 

 on the inner surface. At the top a small hole is left through 

 which the eggs are passed up to the number of sixty or one 

 hundred. The eggs are very small, and are covered by a sticky 

 fluid which causes them to adhere in a cluster. The egg-case 

 having received its complement of eggs, the hole is closed by 

 earth moistened by saliva, and the eggs are left untended. The 

 young millipedes hatch out in about twelve days. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. Cambridge Natural History, vol. v. ; Encyclopedia Britannica 

 (ed. ix.), xvii. ; Packard, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5), xii., 1883. 



