The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-11-03
MANY-LEGGED CRAWLERS.
Natural History Studies to BE Con-
Quoted i'm the Pastures.

November st. Nicholas.
In any pasture or other uncultivated
piece of ground, or by the roadside, you
may find many pretty buried stones of all
sizes, from small pebbles up to powders
many times larger than a man can lift.
No one who has not explored would guess
how much of the life of the fields and
woods goes on under the stones. Here a
multitude of little creatures-snakes. nevis.
snails and many insects-live all the year
round. or take refuge from their enemies
or from the cold. Besides this, these rocks
form doors which you can open, and then
you can catch glimpses of the life of the
underground world which goes on every
where beneath the surface of the soil.
If you turn over one of these stones
quickly you sometimes find nothing at all;
often an ants nest occasionally a colony
OF SnailS, or sometimes a tiny snake cOiled
in a ball like a marble.
Once in a while you find n glossy red
brown creature about an inch long. This
little fellow seems to be mostly legs, and
he scampers and wriggles away so quickly
that it is almost impossible to seize him
before he disappears down some minute
hole. He Is often called an earwig, but in
correctly; he Is really a centipede. which,
as young students Of Latin already know,
means "hundred-legs. But this little fell
low is only a second cousin of the foOt-lOng
centipede of hot countries. whose bite is as
painful and dangerous as that of q scOr-
pion. This little centipede. however U1itho-
bus, the naturalsts call him), is perfectly
safe to handle, for though formidable
enough to the creatures of his own size,
he cannot bite through the human skin.
You see how quick he is, and can imagine
how fierce and terrible he must seem to
the sluggish worms and insect larvae on
which he feeds. In spite of his name, he
doesn't really have a hundred legs. but
only fifteen pairs. jointed like an insect : /;
and, like all centipedes, he has only one
body between the joints are called. Be
sides his thirty legs he has a pair of big
poison claws, which he carries folded for
ward. one on each side of his head. His
prey he kills with these claws, their wound
being instantly fatal to small animals.
Very unlike the fierce and active cent?
pede is another creature about as long but
with a slender. round dark body and very
short legs. Some young folks call this a
worm, but he is not worm at all. but a
millipede, or "thousand-legs," and is called
julius by naturalists. Actually he does not
have a thousand legs, but only about a
hundred, and, unlike the centipedes, he has
two pairs of legs on every segment except
the first three. Unlike the centipedes too
he has no poison claws, and is not venom
Gus; he is timid. gentle creature that
crawls about slowly. in spite of his numer-
Gus legs. He is, however. somewhat in
furious 10 vegetation. because he bites off
the roots of plants for food. but for the
most part he feeds on decaying vegetation
If you brighten him he will coil up quickly,
but II you handle him gently he will crawl
over your hands. touching his short an
tennae, first one ana then the other to the
surface In front of him. like a blind man
tapping the ground with his stick As he
crawls along 1t is interesting to watch the