F. G. SINCLAIR, M.A.
(FORMERLY F. G. HEATHCOTE)
Trinity College, Cambridge.
CHAPTER II
MYRIAPODA
INTRODUCTION–HABITS–CLASSIFICATION–STRUCTURE–CHILOGNATHA–CHILOPODA–SCHIZOTARSIA–SYMPHYLA–PAUROPODA–EMBRYOLOGY–PALAEONTOLOGY.
Tracheata with separated head and numerous, fairly similar segments. They have one pair of antennae, two or three pairs of mouth appendages, and numerous pairs of legs.
The Myriapoda are a class of animals which are widely distributed, and are represented in almost every part of the globe. Heat and cold alike seem to offer favourable conditions for their existence, and they flourish both in the most fertile and the most barren countries.
They have not attracted much notice until comparatively recent times. Compared with Insects they have been but little known. The reason of this is not hard to find. The Myriapods do not exercise so much direct influence on human affairs as do some other classes of animals; for instance, Insects. They include no species which is of direct use to man, like the silkworm or the cochineal insect, and they are of no use to him as food. It is true that they are injurious to his crops. For instance, the species of Millepede known as the "wire worm"[[10]] is extremely harmful; but this has only attracted much notice in modern times, when land is of more value than formerly, and agriculture is pursued in a more scientific manner, and the constant endeavour to get the utmost amount of crop from the soil has caused a minute investigation into the various species of animals which are noxious to the growing crop. The species of Myriapoda best known to the ancients were those which were harmful to man on account of their poisonous bite.
Some writers have supposed that the word which is translated "mole" in the Bible (Lev. xi. 30) is really Scolopendra (a genus of Centipede), and, if this is so, it is the earliest mention of the Myriapods. They were rarely noticed in the classical times; almost the only mention of them is by Ælian, who says that the whole population of a town called Rhetium were driven out by a swarm of Scolopendras. Pliny tells us of a marine Scolopendra, but this was most probably a species of marine worm.
Linnaeus included Myriapods among the Insects; and the writers after him till the beginning of this century classed them with all sorts of Insects, with Spiders, Scorpions, and even among Serpents. It was Leach who first raised them to the importance of a separate class, and Latreille first gave them the name of Myriapoda, which they have retained ever since.