372 NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
detail, a "forty-footed Jenny," and it was captured when sunning itself
upon a window-ledge in the ancient borough of Colchester. In fact,
Scutigera coleoptrata, L. (Family Scutigeridae, Gerv.) is the most domestic of
the centipedes, and in its native places is to be found about houses as well as
under logs and stones.
Specimens have from time to time been collected in the Channel Islands,
but the only previous record for the British Isles proper was of a colony
which, probably introduced among quantities of rags, established itself in a
paper-mill at Aberdeen, and throve amazingly, making a home between the
ceilings and the floors.
No theory as to the appearance of the specimen in Colchester has as yet
been propounded."
The specimen was taken as a "caterpillar" to a local entomologist (Mr.
Harwood), who has since put it into my hands to add to the material which
I have been collecting for some years with a view of writing an account of
the Essex Myriopods. From the popular account of the discovery in the
paper quoted, the following remarks may be taken :- -
"The creature in question often darts out to seize the insects it preys
upon in the open, and with its relatives must be of considerable service to
man. It is unlike the millipedes, or false wire-worms, which are vegetarians,
and destroyed whole crops of strawberries in Essex last summer.
"From a scientific point of view, the centipedes are much more nearly
related to the true six-legged insects than they are to the forms last mentioned,
and Scutigera, which is the only one with compound facetted eyes, is perhaps
the most insect-like. Its antennae are equal in length to its body, and its legs,
though long anteriorly, get longer as they approach the hinder end of the
body, even more markedly than on the common brown form of our gardens.
The latter can boast of seventeen pairs, while our visitor rejoices in but nine,
though he can make better use of them, running with great rapidity."
I may add that I should always be glad to receive specimens of myriopods
and wood-lice for identification.—Wilfred Mark Webb, F.L.S., 2, The
Broadway, Hammersmith.
ARACHNIDA.
"Aggressive Resemblance" in a Spider. — When making a
natural history excursion with the boys of the Earls Colne Grammar School,
the writer came across a specimen of a white spider (Misumena vatia, Clck, ;
Fam. Thomisidae) sitting on the flower of a wild rose, and so well did the
creature harmonize with its surroundings, that it would have escaped notice
but for the Hoverer-fly (Syrphus) which it was eating, the presence of which
in the blossom excited curiosity and more detailed examination. The writer
has not before noted this striking example of aggressive resemblance, either
in Essex or elsewhere; but the Rev. O. Pickard-Cambridge says in a letter
that the spider is common ; indeed on the same day several examples were
found among elder flowers, and here the resemblance, though doubtless of use
to the animals in catching their prey, was not to remarkable. The male is
interesting, as being very different from the female both in appearance and
size, and a spider presumably of the former sex, unfortunately escaped before
it could be examined. W. M. Webb, F.L.S