MYRIAPODA. 
351 
composed of two mandibles furnished with a little palpiform appen- 
dage, which seemed to have been soldered in the middle, and ter- 
minated like the bowl of a spoon with dentated edges ; of a quadrifid 
lip ■*, of which the two lateral divisions are the larg’est, and trans- 
versely annulated, resembling the membranous feet of caterpillars; 
of two palpi or little feet, united at base and unguiculated at the extre- 
mity, and of a second lip | formed by a second pair of feet, dilated 
and united at base, and terminated by a stout moveable hook, whose 
inferior extremity is perforated by a hole which affords an issue to a 
venomous fluid. 
The body is depi’essed and membranous. Each of its rings is 
covered with a coriaceous or cartilaginous plate, and most generally 
bears but a single pair of feet ; the last is usually thrown backwards, 
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 Scolo- 
pendra morsitans is styled in the Antilles the malfaisante. Some of 
them exhibit phosphorescent pi'operties. 
The organs of generation are internal, and placed at the posterior 
extremity of the body, as in most of the following Insects. The 
stigmata are lateral or dorsal, and more apparent than in the preced- 
ing family. 
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 : 
* A part analogous to the lower lip of the Chilognatlia, representing, in my 
opinion, the tongue of the Crustacea, but also capable of fulfilling the function of 
jaws; Savigny calls it the first auxiliary lip. 
f The second auxiliary lip of the same naturalist. It is not annexed to the head, 
but to the anterior extremity of the first semi-segment. The two hooked feet, by 
the union and dilatation of their first joint, form a plate resembling a mentum and 
lip. The same segment bears the two first ordinary feet. In the Scolopendra: 
proper of Leach, the two first stigmata are situated under the third half-segment, 
the first not counted; the second and following one will compose the first complete 
ring, and then the two first stigmata are found, as in other Insects, placed on a 
space corresponding to the prothorax. This second auxiliary lip may thus represent 
the inferior lip of the grinding Hexapoda. But here the pharynx is placed before that 
lip, whei-eas in the Myriapoda it is situated before the first auxiliary lip. It is from 
these considerations and affinities, and from others furnished by the Eutoniostraca 
and Arachnides, that I consider the feet of the Hexapoda as analogous to the six 
foot-jaws of the Crustacea Decapoda. 
t In this case they arc but semi-annuli. See our general observations on the 
order. 
