Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/353

Rh distinct transverse gruove down the centre of each. The legs of millepedes though numerous are exceedingly weak, and in moving they appear to glide along like footless worms. They are most frequently found among damp moss, and beneath masses of decaying vegetable matter on which they feed ; and when in danger they roll themselves into a ball, The British species are few, and the largest of these does not exceed 2 inches in length ; but there is an American form which attains a length of 8 inches, All are equally harmless, the prehensile jaws being rudimen tary, while the other parts of the mouth are modified to suit their purely vegetable diet. Centipedes, or &quot;Hundred-Legs,&quot; have their segments flattened, and covered with a leathery skin, and have one pair of legs on each segment, the posterior pair being directed backwards and elongated so as to resemble a couple of jointed tails. Their antennre have not less than fourteen and rarely more than forty joints, while the body segments do not usually exceed twenty. The organs of the mouth are masticatory, and are admirably adapted to the carnivorous habits of the centipede. It feeds principally on insects, seizing them with its powerful prehensile organs, and injecting at the same time its venom into the wound. The bite of the larger forms, as Scolopendra morsitans, occurring in tropical countries, is exceedingly painful, and is described by those who have suffered from it &quot;as similar to what might be produced by contact with a red-hot iron,&quot; giving rise to swelling, throbbing pains, and febrile symptoms (Dr Collingwood s Naturalist s Rambles in the China Seas). These, however, yield readily to an application of ammonia. Centipedes seldom exceed a foot in length. They are exceedingly active in pursuit of their prey, insinuating their many-jointed and flattened bodies under stones, beneath the bark of trees, and wherever insects usually lurk. Lithohius forcipatus, the commonest British species, is 2 inches long, and quite harmless, although when seized it attempts to fix its jaws into the skin of its captor. The species belonging to the genus Geophilus are said to be luminous in the dark. Upwards of twenty species of fossil Myriapoda are known, the oldest from the Coal Measures of North America, and belonging to the millepede or vegetable-eating division. One of these, Xylobius sigillaria, was found in the hollow trunks of the fossil Sig Maria.  CENTLIVRE, (1667-1723), a dramatic writer, was born in 1667, or perhaps a year or two later, probably in Ireland, whither her father, Mr Freeman, a Lincolnshire gentleman, had been forced to flee at the Restoration on account of his Parliamentarian principles. Being left an orphan about the age of eleven she came to London, where, at the age of sixteen she married a nephew of Sir Stephen Fox. About twelve months afterwards her husband died ; and she then married a military officer named Carrol. Carrol was killed in a duel about a year and a half after their marriage, and his widow was left to support herself by her pen and by acting. Her first attempt was a tragedy called the Perjured Husband ; but almost f 11 her subsequent pieces were comedies, several of which, throughtheirliveliness, enjoyed very considerable popularity, as for example the well-known Busibndy (which has been represented within the last few years), A Bold Stroke, for a Wife, The Basset table, The Wonder a Woman keeps a Secret, Love at a Venture. Her wit and personal attrac tions also gained her the support of Steele, Farquhar, Howe, and many others of high position in literature and society. In 1706 she married Mr Joseph Cent- livre, principal cook to Queen Anne, with whom she lived till her death in 1723. Her dramatic works were published, with a biography, in 3 vols. 12mo, 1761, reprinted 1872.  CENTO, a town of Italy, in the province of Ferrara, 16 miles north by west of Bologna, situated in a fertile plain near the Reno. It is the seat of a bishop, has a cathedral and several fine buildings, and carries on a trade in grain and hemp ; but it is chiefly remarkable as the birthplace of the painter Guercino, several of whose works are to be seen in the churches of St Biagio and the Madonna del Rosario. . His house is still preserved, and a statue has been erected to his memory in the middle of the town. Population about 19,000.  CENTO (Greek Kwrpw, Latin cento, patchwork), a com position made up of passages from other works. The Byzantine Greeks manufactured several out of the poems of Homer, among which may be mentioned the life of Christ by the famous Empress Eudoxia, and a version of the Biblical history of Eden and the Fall. The Romans of the later empire and the monks of the Middle Ages were fond of constructing poems out of the verse of Virgil. Such were the ancient Cento Niiptialis of Ausonius, the sketch of Biblical history which was compiled in the 4th century by Proba Falconia, wife of a Roman pro consul, and the hymns in honour of St Quirinus taken from Virgil and Horace by Metellus, a monk of Tegernsee, in the latter half of the 12th century. Specimens may be found in the work of Aldus Manutius (Venice, 1504 ; Frankfort, 1541, 1544). In 1535 Laelius Capitulus pro duced from Virgil an attack upon the dissolute lives of the monks; in 1536 there appeared at Venice a Petrarca Spirituale ; and in 1634 Alexander Ross (a Scotchman, and one of the chaplains of Charles I.) published a Virgilius Evangelizans, seu Historia Domini nostri Jesu Christi Virgil ianis verbis et versibus descripta.  CENTORBI, or, the ancient Centuripa, a town of Sicily, on a rugged mountain, in the province of Catania, and 20 miles W.N.W. of the city of that name. At a very early period Centuripa was an important town of the Siculi ; and through various vicissitudes it succeeded in maintaining its independence until the first Punic war, when it was besieged by the consuls Otacilius and Valerius Messala. In the time of Cicero it was one of the most flourishing places in the island, and had a population of about 10,000. In 1233 it was destroyed by Frederick II. Extensive remains of the ancient city still exist. The new town has a population of upwards of 7000.  CENTRAL AMERICA, as a geographical division, would naturally include the whole stretch of territory from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the Isthmus of Darien, which forms the nexus between the two great masses of North and South America ; but political arrangements have so affected the use of the name that it only includes the portion corresponding to the five independent North American republics of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, San Salvador, and Guatemala, while the Isthmus of Panama is assigned to South America as a part of New Granada, and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Penin sula of Yucatan are incorporated with North America as parts of Mexico. Central America thus lies between 7 and 18 of N. Lit., extends about 800 or 900 miles in length, and has a varying breadth of from 30 to 300 miles. For details the reader is referred to separate articles on the five republics mentioned above, which formed a federal republic from 1823 to 1839, and have frequently en deavoured since then to effect a restoration of their union.  CENTRAL INDIA POLITICAL AGENCY, the official name for a group of feudatory states in the middle of India. Roughly speaking, they are bounded on the N. by Rajputana, the North-Western Provinces, and Oudh ; on the E. by the Chhota Nagpur division of Bengal, on the S. by the Central Provinces, and on the W. by Bombay. The total area of these states is not accurately known, 