The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-01-28
Nature Study.
SOME QUEER LITTLE ANIMALS THAT
LIVE UNDER STONES.

Vated piece OF ground, or by the
roadside, you may find many pretty
buried stones, of all sizes, from small
pebbles up to boulders many times
larger than a man can lift.
No n 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 lit
tie creatures-snakes, nevis, snails,
n many inseots-live all the year
round, or take refuge from their enc,
mics or from the cold. Besides this,
these rocks form doors which you
"a open, and then you can catch
glimpses of the life of the under,
ground 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, occasion
ally a colony of snails, or sometimes
a tiny snake coiled in a ball like a
marble.
Once in a while you find a glossy
red brown creature about an inch
long. This little fellow seems to bs
mostly legs, and he soampers and
wriggles away so quickly that it Is
almost impossible to seize him before
he disappears down some minu6e
hole. He is often called an earwig,
but incorrectly he is really a oenti-
pede, which, as young students of
Latin already know, means "hun-
dred-legs." But this little fellow is
only & second cousin of the foot long
centipede of hot countries, whose
bite is as painful and dangerous as
that of q scorpion. This little centi-
pede, however (LtthObius, the natur-
alists call him), is perfectly safe to
handle, for though formidable
enough TO the creatures Of his W
size, he cannot bite through the hu-
man skin. You see how quick he is,
and can imagine how fierce and ter
rible he must seem to the sluggish
worms and insect larvae on which he
feeds. In spite of his name he does
not really have a 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 called. Besides 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
centipede is another creature about
as long, but with q slender, round
dark body and very short legs. Some
young folks call this a worm but he
is not a 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 oentipedes, he has tuOO pairs of
legs on every segment except the
first three. Unlike the centipedes,
too, he has no poison claws, and is
not venomous he is a timid, gentle
creature that orawls about slowly,
in spite of his numerous legs. He is,
however, somewhat injurious to
vegetation because he bites off the
roots of plants for food but for the
most part he feeds on decaying vege-
tation. If you brighten him he will
coil up quickly but if you handle
him gently he will crawl over your
hands, touching his short antenn8,
first one and then the other, to the
surface in front of him, like a blind
man tapping the ground with his
stick. AS he crawls along, it Is in
teresting to watch the curious wave
which, starting behind, runs forward
along the fence of legs on each side.
The lithobius is the only oentipede
which one is likely to find. There
are, however, two II three other
millipedes which, though not so
common as julius, are not infre-
Cuently encountered. Like all MILL
pedes, they may be recognized by
their general resem blanoe to Julius,
and in particular by the two jointed
legs to each segment.
Far more common than either the
millipedes or oentipedes are the little
animals called wood-lice. These are