The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1902-03-18
mANY-LEGGED cRAwLERs.

In any pasture or other uncultiVated
piece of ground, or by the roadside,
says a writer in st. Nicholas, you
may find many pretty buried stones,
of all sizes, from small pebbles up to
boulders many times larger than
man can lift. No one who has not ex-
plored 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 enc
mics 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 everywhere be-
meath 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 coll
ony Of snails, or sometimes a tiny
snake coiled in ball like marble.
Once in while you find a 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 i'm
possible to seize him before he disap-
pears down some minute hole. He is
often called an earwig, but Incorrect
ly; he is really centipede, which, as
young students of Latin already know,
means "hundred-legs." But this little
fellow is only a second cousin of the
foot-long centipede of hot countries,
whose bite is as painful and dangerous
as that of a scorpion. This little CEN
tipede, however Lithobius, the natur-
alists 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 i'm
agine how fierce and terrible he must
seem to the sluggish worms and in
sect larvae on which he feeds. In
spite of his name he doesn't really
have hundred legs, but only fifteen
pairs, jointed like an insects; and,
like all centipedes, he has only one
pair to each segment, as the parts of
the body between the joints are call
ed. Besides his thirty legs he has a
pair of big poison claws, which he
carries folded forward, 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 centipede
is another creature about as long, but
with a slender, round dark body and
very short legs. Some young folks
call this worm; but he is not worm
at all, but a millipede, or Thousand
legs" and is called julius by natural
lists. Actually he does not have a
thousand legs, but only about a hun
dred; and, unlike the centipedes. he
has two pairs of legs on every seq
ment except the first three. Unlike the
centipedes, too, he has no noison
claws, and is not venomous; he is a
timid, gentle creature that crawls
about slowly, in spite of his numerous
legs. He is, however, somewhat in
furious to vegetation, because he bites
on the roots of plants for food. but
Tor the most part, he feeds on decav-
ing vegetation. II you brighten him be
VIII coil up quickly; but If Won
handle him gently he will crawl over |
your hands, touching his short anten-
nae, first on one and then the other N |
the surface in front of him. like n
blind man tapping the ground with his |
SUCK AS he crawls along. it is inter
esting to watch the curious wave
which, starting behind, runs forward
along the fence Of legs on each side. |