Living in chinks and crannies of ranges in our homes, and occasionally in bookcases and closets where glutinous and sugary matters abound, but which has probably not been met with elsewhere, is a strange but beautiful little creature which, as far as can be determined, goes through the brief round of its existence without a name to distinguish it from its fellows. Few entomologists have given any special attention to its family relationships. The possession of certain bristle-like appendages which terminate the abdomen, and which are no doubt comparable with the abdominal legs of the Myriopods, or Thousand Legs, classes it with the Bristle-tails, or Lepismas. In general form, a likeness to the larva of Perla, a net-veined neuropterous insect, is manifest, or to the narrow-bodied species of Blattariæ, or Cockroaches, when divested of wings. _Lepisma saccharina_, of Europe, which is indistinguishable from our ordinary American form, is far from uncommon in old, damp houses. Its structure is less complicated than the heat-loving species to which I have alluded, and there are likewise differences of habits which show themselves to the close investigator of natural phenomena. Not unlike the cockroaches, which our little denizen of the hearth somewhat vaguely resembles in form, it affects hot, dry localities, and is always astir at nights in quest of its fare, for it disdains the light of the day and the consequent publicity of its deeds of shame and plunder. Many a housewife in the discharge of duty has unearthed, so to speak, the miscreant from its hidden retreat, and sought by foot or hand to crush the life that dares obtrude its uncleanly presence in her larder, but the cunning, swift-footed Lepisma darts off, like a streak of light, to some near-by crack or breach, where it manages to hide from threatening danger. The bodies of these nimble, silent-moving creatures being coated in a suit of shining mail, which the arrangement of the scales so very much resembles, they have a weird and ghostly look. This appearance, and the swiftness of their movement, which the eye can hardly trace, have led the vivid mind of man, in country town and village, to dub them “silver witches.” So fleet of foot are they, and so like a wave of blurred light they cross the vision, that it is vain to try to figure what they are in shape and look. In death they yield their all of earth to prying science. Their body’s form is narrow, flattened; their legs in pairs of threes, each of six joints consisting, the basal joints broad, flat, triangular, the tarsal large, in number two, and armed at end with pair of claws incurved. The three thoracic segments are very like in size, and eight abdominals, of similar length and width. So weak it seems the rather long abdomen is, that two pairs or six of bristles, simple, unjointed, and freely movable, serve as support, and also, as in other groups of insects, as organs locomotive.