We were restricted to sampling during the day and only at ground level. To try and over-come this problem hand-searching was used as it is not as reliant on the activity patterns of the animals as alternative methods, such as pitfall trapping, and is the method currently recommended by the British Myriapod and Isopod Group (S. Gregory, pers. comm.) for larger species, although we acknowledge that numbers may have been underestimated. However, as the purpose of the research was to compare treatments and sites rather than establishing absolute densities, we feel that hand -searching is adequate.