 Potter was an unsentimental naturalist who thought no creature either good or bad , and had no qualms describing earwigs in Mrs. Tittlemouse 's passage or woodlice in her pantry . Her publisher Harold Warne however had different ideas about what was appropriate for a children 's book . He had become accustomed to Potter 's unusual choice of animal subjects through the years , but , ever sensitive to public reaction , thought she had gone a bit too far in Mrs. Tittlemouse with the earwig and the woodlice . The earwig was , at his behest , transmogrified into a beetle and the woodlice into " creepy @-@ crawly people " hiding in Mrs. Tittlemouse 's plate rack . " I can alter the text , when I get the proofs , " she wrote , " and will erase the offensive word ' wood @-@ lice ' ! " Potter argued for the generic term " slaters " for the woodlice , but was overruled . It was decided that an illustration of a centipede ( Miss Maggie <unk> ) would be withdrawn and replaced with a butterfly . 
