8.3 



Woodlice. 



By W. Omer Cooper. 

 (Read before the Zoological Section, March 6th, 1915.) 



HE Oniscoidea or, as they are commonly called, Woodlice, 



belong to the class Crustacea. Together with numerous 

 marine species and a few which live in fresh water they form the 

 Order' Isopoda, but, owing to their terrestrial mode of life, they 

 have become widely different in appearance and structure from 

 other Crustaceans and were classified by many of the older 

 naturalists among the insects. As Mr. Stebbing tells us, " the 

 •one feature of the moral character which all Isopoda possess in 

 common " is a prudent love of obscurity and consequently they 

 are little known to any but specialists, although their abundance 

 and the considerable economic importance of some of the marine 

 forms, such as the notorious Fish-Lice, should lead to their more 

 general study. 



At the present time Woodlice have no commercial value, but 

 it is interesting to n~>te, with regard to those species, such as the 

 familiar A rmadillidium , which roll themselves into balls, that the 

 London College of Physicians formerly prescribed them in various 

 •cases of illness, and, swallowed alive like pills, they were once a 

 well-known, though, I should imagine, hardly a popular remedy. 

 They were also, I believe, administered to cows to " promote the 

 restoration of the cud." To the horticulturist they are, of course, 

 ■only too well-known, but there seems to be a considerable amount 

 of doubt as to the injuries done by these creatures : it is, however, 

 apparent that they do eat the roots of various plants and such 

 things as mushrooms, etc., to an extent which must seriously 

 affect the condition of the garden. But in spite of their economic 

 and "medical" interest, the Woodlice have been little studied 

 until the last few years when they seem to have become a more 

 popular subject. This is, I think, due in part to the appearance 

 in 1906 of a small work on the British species by Mr. W. M. 

 Webb, the well-known secretary of the Selbourne Society, which 

 attracted a good deal of attention on account of its excellent and 

 popular style. The book contains several striking inaccuracies 

 and is almost worthless for the identification of specimens, but 

 it is splendidly illustrated and certainly served to arouse interest 

 in the group. The chief scientific works dealing with the Wood- 

 lice are the late Professor Budde-Lund's " Crustacea Isopoda 

 Terrestria " — a fine work, but, unfortunately, written in Latin — 

 Volume 2 of Sars' " Crustacea of Norway," and various scattered 

 papers by M. Dollfus, the Rev. T. R. R. Stebbing, Canon 

 Norman, Dr. Scharf, Mr. Bagnall, and others. 



These authorities differ considerably in their schemes of 

 classification for this group, but to me the most satisfactory 

 appears to be that of Professor Budde-Lund, who divides the 

 whole of the Oniscoidea, with the exception of a few aberrant 



