134 THE FOOD OF ANIMALS 



I was in Malta, and I used to go and watch them on the slopes 

 outside Valetta, where they were to be found in great numbers. 

 They used to come out from beneath great stones and run about 

 rapidly on the ground or on the stones and rubbish with which the 

 ground was covered, now and again making a dart at some small 

 insect which tempted them, and seemingly not minding the blazing 

 sun at all." 



PRIMITIVE TRACHEATES (Prototracheata) 



The last and lowest class, Prototracheata, of the air-breathing 

 Arthropods, has been instituted for the reception of a single 

 genus^ known by the name of Peripatus (see vol. i, pp. 399 and 

 400), of which species are distributed all round the world in 

 tropical regions. Found in rotten wood and in crevices among 

 stones, it looks not unlike a caterpillar with numerous pairs of 

 clumsy-looking legs, each ending in a pair of claws. Though 

 eyes are present, they probably do little more than enable the 

 animal to avoid the light, and this slowly-moving creature seems 

 to detect its prey, consisting of flies and other small animals, by 

 means of its mobile feelers. Observations made on the New 

 Zealand species show pretty clearly that sluggishness in move- 

 ment is made up for by well-developed slime-glands, opening on 

 a pair of short modified limbs (oral papillae) near the mouth. 

 From these it is able rapidly to eject a sticky fluid to a distance 

 of a foot, an arrangement which is probably as efficient as the 

 sticky tongue of an ant-eater, a woodpecker, or a chameleon. 

 Once secured, the prey is dealt with by a pair of jaws, working 

 from side to side in the usual arthropod manner, and each pro- 

 vided with a couple of sharp blades. It is a striking character 

 of Arthropods generally that some of the limbs near the mouth 

 should have assumed a chewing function, and here we have the 

 arrangement in its simplest form, as but one pair of limbs is 

 specialized into jaws. 



' This has recently been broken up into other genera, but the common usage is convenient in 

 a popular work. 



