126 



FIRST BOOK OF ZOOLOGY. 



millepeds, have a long, cylindrical, and oftentimes shiny body, 

 composed of a great many segments so smoothly joined to- 

 gether that it is difScnlt to see the separation between them. 

 The antenna are short, there are no long caudal append- 

 ages, and the legs are short and feeble. At first sight it 

 would appear that these creatm'es were exceptional among 

 insects and sj^iders, in having two pairs of legs to one seg- 

 ment ; but it has been learned, by studying the very young 

 milleped, that there is really but one pair of legs to a seg- 

 ment, but that the segments grow together in pairs, so that 

 each apparent segment is composed of two segments. 



compound eye. 



antenna. 0. 



Fig. 118. — A Common Mtlliped. The line underneatli the fifjnre represents the lenp^th of 

 the specimen from which the drawintr was made. A . a ^Magnified View of the Head of the 

 Milliped represented above ; B, a Magnified View of the Left Jaw. 



These creatures live on decaying matter, and are slow and 

 weak in all their movements. When touched, or alarmed, 

 they coil up in a closely-wound roll. The body is hard, and 

 the animal can be stuck on a card for the cabinet. The eggs, 

 to the number of sixty or more, are laid in little burrows 



