Morning journal and courier., 1890-04-29

itself crustacean. The parasites, of which we saw but few, were hid about under the legs and joints of the shield of the scorpi- on's body. Scorpions quite probably at times she'd their skins, or rather their shell covering, for I noticed under several of the stones where the creatures lay that there were the remains of the shell covering that might have been cast off. There were also what thought might be the egg, but of this I was not assured. The exclusive habits of the scorpion, to- gether with their ready means of defense and low organization, have had no doubt something to do with their survival since al- most inconceivably remote ages. They have few enemies, nothing that we are aware of eats them, nobody molests them except what some of my Arkansas friends called ''natu- ral," and whether they meant 8 naturalist or one lacking in the usual amount of intelli- gence we are still in doubt.
 Inhabiting the same rocks with the SCOT pions is another venonous creature known as the centipede. This family is so named from the great number of it's feet. It has not, however, as many pedal extremities as it's name would indicate, there being but
 forty-twenty on each side. The body is
 heavily mailed and divided into sections,
 with pair of legs for each.
 It Is distant relative of the scorpion, and
 can boast of an ancestry nearly as old, since
 fossil remains of the creature are found fine
 ly preserved in the carboniferous rocks. It is one of the most repulsive creatures of that
 awful age. It is representative of the time
 when land and sea with the clements were at
 war, where the very atmosphere was venom laden and the huge, unsightly and unsavory efyptcgramic plants came, as 1t were.- to the rescue of the young world by absorbing the pestilent gases preparatory to the introduce tion of more highly organized land animals. A,oosl nI, eho
 stiffness, for lungs were still yet unborn, the venom footed centipede was really king of the reeking day.
 The largest centipede saw in Arkansas was little more than eight inches long. There has been some discussion among natu- pede inficts wound. Buckland says that | it is with the first pair of legs, which are 1 more highly developed and contain more venom. Buckland doubtless refers to its pincers, for it's first pair of legs are the l smallest In my experience with these have noticed that in attack they use the short, strong pincers in the front part of their head. In capturing large centipede, however, noticed that, in lifting 1t up with l a couple of sticks after it became wounded, | it continually made efforts to wrap it's legs | about the sticks as though making an effort l to infict wounds, but when placed in glass | jar with lizard already in alcohol, 1t seized the reptile by the head with it's pincers, | burying them completely, and died in that 1 position.
 Yet found that the belief was quite gen- | eral among the people that If centipede 1 crawled over ones bare skin, that it left 8 | poisoned trail from it's feet.
 Numerous seemingly we'll authenticated stories were told to prove this. An old far mer very feelingly narrated how his own daughter, fifteen or sixteen years old, lay sleeping in his cabin one warm summer night, when centipede fell from the roof on her bare bosom. The marks left by the hor- rid creature made an ugly sore and nearly ruined the beauty of the girls form. Another curdling story was told of 8 sol- | dier during the war. Having wet his clothes l in crossing swollen stream, he built fire, I before which he hung up his raiment to dry. 1 While waiting, sitting on rock with his back to a tree before the fire. he fell asleep, but was awakened by strange sensation, and was mortified to find a great centipede stretched out on his bare leg with it's head @ l little elevated just ovor his knee. Having
 his revolver handy. he very quietly drew it up and shot the creature's head away. But
 the centipede, quivering in its death agony, i immediately sank every ono of it's feet into T the flesh of his leg. The soldier, 80 the sto. ry ended, died in great agony some days at.
 ter from the effect of these wounds.
 I noticed one day red mark across lads
 arm and asked him what caused it. "Whert
 a centipede orawled over me,"," was the an
 swer. A similar faint, reddish scar on thu
 calf of a boys leg was ascribed to the sam'
 origin.
 Each one of the centipeds's forty legs ii
 covered with hard, smooth armor of ligh
 colored shell, most admirably jointed to per
 init hexibility; the last section or foot termi
 mates in slightly curved single joint, ex'
 osedingly sharp. This flung like single toe is
 black and not very unlike the scorpions
 sting. On the inside of the second section
 above the large toe fang is a similar but
 much smaller one. One can easily conceive
 that strong, muscular creature like centi-
 pede, fin crawling over the tender, sensitive
 skin of the human body, might scratch ol
 puncture it with these sharp, hard fang like
 points, causing irritation.
 I have been unable to find any poisor glands connected with these foot fangs, ye still the animal may have some way of plac ing venom on them from the head.
 I tried some experiments by placing SCOT pions and centipsdes in @ box and irritating
 them. The scorpion always suffered, hii greater relative seeming to be too we'll ar
 mored for his sting to penetrate.
 A tsrantula, too, killed three scorpions
 before he himself succumbed to the sting Having seen 6 number of bats in 8 cav ) ern, I obtained several Of these insective . rous animals and placed them in bo'
 with lively pair of scorpions. Mex
 morning the bats were all dead and tn ) scorpions as lively as ever.