7662 Myriapods. 



cotton plants ; and gets crushed, in consequence, under the Jugger- 

 naut wheels of Chinese hand-barrows, or beneath the ponderous tread 

 of labouring Coolie. Most of his consimilars are of retiring habits, 

 love the seclusion of rotting logs, or seek the shelter of stones ; but 

 our familiar worm seems to love the sun. He encounters a great 

 hulking spider, who jerks himself out of the way ; he meets a little 

 foraging pafty of ants, and he goes without flinching through their 

 serried ranks, or, if he cannot go through them, he marches over 

 them ; fissures, which to him must be frightful chasms, he boldly 

 encounters ; hillocks, in his eyes rugged mountains, he faces and sur- 

 mounts with ease. 



With unfailing energy he works his " myriad" legs, seeking in his 

 progress — who knows what ? To me, who have so often watched his 

 wanderings, his object still seems purposeless : I have not fathomed 

 the mystery of his life. Unheeded he passes by the charming bells 

 of Mazus pulchellus, a pigmy beauty, whose blossoms nearly touch 

 the earth ; he pushes under bits of straw and withered blades of 

 grass ; he evades the fallen cotton-pods, the beards of barley and the 

 awns of rice ; he disregards the thistle-down and the feathered seeds 

 that lie in his way ; he will reject a putrid land-crab, and turn up his 

 (metaphorical) nose at a dead snail ; he inclines towards a crushed 

 fungus, but on second thoughts is not partial to toadstools ; he makes 

 for a decayed fragment of wood, but he does not banquet on that. 

 As he crawls he perpetually forms " lines of grace and beauty" by the 

 lateral undulations of his mobile body. I have named him Craspe- 

 dosoma vagabunda, a long name, and one which reminds me how a 

 facetious critic in the ' Annals ' found fault with some short names in 

 the ' Genera of Recent Mollusca ; ' but I think any one, save our 

 critic, will allow that Aspa is nearly as good as Hispa, and at least 

 [ one syllable longer than Ips, Trox, Cis, Blaps, Flos and Phos. 



This Chinese species is an inch in length, of a dark chestnut-brown, 

 bright and shining, and may be known by the pale oblong tubercles 

 on the sides of the body, one on each segment ; by a transverse, mi- 

 nutely punctate groove in the middle of each segment ; and by the 

 hinder margins of the segments being finely beaded. The terminal 

 or caudal segment is furnished with four short bristles. These cha- 

 racters will serve to distinguish it from the two European species of 

 the genus already known. 



Arthur Adams. 

 Sliangliai, March, 1861. 



