xii SCORPIONIDEA SCORPIONS 299 



poor. A moving object within the range of a few inches is 

 certainly perceived, but it has to be touched before its nature is 

 recognised. Some writers have attributed to scorpions a keen 

 sense of hearing, and so-called " auditory hairs " are described on 

 the tibia of the pedipalp, but Pocock came to the conclusion 

 that Parabuthus capensis and Euscorpius carpatliicus were 

 entirely deaf, and Lankester could obtain no indication of 

 auditory powers in the case of Prionurus. The sense of touch 

 is extremely delicate, and seems to reside in the hairs, with 

 which the body and appendages are more or less thickly clothed. 

 The pectines are special tactile organs. That they are in some 

 way related to sex seems probable from the fact that they are 

 larger in. the male and sometimes curiously modified in the 

 female, but they appear to be of use also in determining the 

 nature of the ground traversed by the animal, being long in 

 such species as raise the body high on the legs, and short in 

 those that adopt a more grovelling posture. Pocock noticed 

 that a scorpion which had walked over a portion of a cockroach 

 far enough for the pectines to come in contact with It immedi- 

 ately backed and ate it. 



As is the case with most poisonous animals, their ferocity 

 has been much exaggerated ; they never sting unless molested, 

 and their chief anxiety is to slink off unobserved. The fables 

 that they kill their young, and that when hard pressed they 

 commit suicide by stinging 

 themselves to death, perhaps 

 hardly deserve serious con- 

 sideration. The latter accusa- 

 tion is disproved by the fact 

 that a scorpion's poison has 

 no effect upon itself,- or even 

 upon a closely -allied species. 

 Some writers think that in 

 the frantic waving of the 



" tail," which is generallv 



. . FIG. 167. Buthus occitanus in the mating 



induced by strong excitement, period. (After Fabre.) 



a scorpion may sometimes 



inadvertently wound itself with the sharp point of its telson. 



Fabre gives a fascinating account of the habits of Buthus 

 occitamis, which occurs in the south of France. He found 



