MYEIAPODA. 99 



refuse. The Onisci thus act as scavengers ; but they prefer fruit 

 and mushrooms, both of which they seriously disfigure, especially 

 the soft fruits, as peaches, nectarines, and melons. Greenhouse 

 and hothouse plants suffer severely from their ravages, as also do 

 strawberry plants, the wood-lice eating away at the roots and 

 around the crowns. They conceal themselves in damp dark 

 places, under stones and suchlike, and in crevices in walls. 

 Eotten woodwork is very often filled with them. The eggs, 

 which are numerous, are carried in a pouch in the thorax, the 

 young wood-lice remaining close to the parent for some time. 

 This grey species cannot roll itself up, as we find is commonly 

 done by many of the other species, whilst it can also be told by 

 the antennae being eight-jointed (fig. 37, d), instead of seven as in 

 Porcellio and Armadillo (b). Armadillo vulgaris (a) is larger, 

 smoother, and of a uniforni slaty-blue, and always rolls up into 

 a ball at the least stimulus (c). Porcellio scaber (b), with the 

 seven-jointed antenna, is brown and much varied in colour, and 

 with a rough shell and two longish anal spines. There are 

 many species in this genus, but the above is the commonest. 

 All the "Wood-lice can be easily trapped by placing pieces of 

 potato or scooped-out apples about. Pots filled with moss and 

 horse-dung invariably attract large numbers, when they can be 

 seen in the day-time and killed. The only poison I can find to 

 kill them is mercury bicyanide. 



Myriapoda. 



The myriapods are divided into two groups — namely, Centi- 

 pedes or Chilopoda and Millipedes or Ghilognaiha., The former 

 have the mouth provided with foot-jaws, and have one pair of 

 jointed feet on each segment. The latter have imperforate 

 mandibles, adapted for ordinary biting and chewing. The first 

 three segments have one pair of feet on each, the remainder two 

 pairs. The feet will be seen to be terminated in a single claw. 

 Eyes may or may not be present : when present they are in the 



