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MY PET SCORPION. 605 



MY PET SCORPION. 



By NOKMAN ROBINSON. 



"VT~THEJST I first came to Florida I heard terrible accounts of the 

 V V deadly work of a poisonous " bug," popularly known as the 

 grampus " or " mule-killer." 



My first informant was a " Florida cracker," who seemed fairly 

 intelligent, and whom I had employed in a little woodcraft. He 

 happened to encounter one of those terrible creatures, and promptly 

 41 smashed " it with his axe. On expressing regret that I had no op- 

 portunity of seeing it before it was crushed into so shapeless a mass, 

 he gravely assured me that he " didn't take no resks on them var- 

 mints. Them's the pisenest things in Floridy. Rattlers ain't no- 

 whar! A man what gits bit by one of them critters — no medicine 

 can't save him! We calls 'em mule-killers, cause they's wust on 

 mules. A hoss nor a dog don't seem to mind 'em, but a mule is 

 done dead when one of them varmints strikes 'em." 



I cross-questioned my informant a little as to his personal 

 knowledge of the matter, and especially as to the fatal results 

 following the bite of this very astonishing " bug." " Did you 

 ever know," said I, " of a mule's dying from the bite of this ' mule- 

 killer'?" 



" Oh, yes, I've knowed of several, and I hearn tell of lots. Ole 

 man Jernigan, he loss a likely mule what got struck by one of them 

 critters, and there was a man what died down to the Johnson place, 

 bit by one of them things. They tells me he took whisky enough 

 to kill two men, but it didn't do him no bit of good. He was power- 

 ful fond of whisky, anyway, and he died mighty easy." 



I subsequently made some inquiries in regard to these supposed 

 casualties, and came to the conclusion that my informant's accounts 

 of them were largely mythical. A mule had died in the neighbor- 

 hood mentioned, but the " mule-killer " was colic; and in the case of 

 the man, although he claimed to have been bitten by a " grampus," 

 it was generally believed that the " serpent of the still " was the most 

 deadly " varmint " he had recently encountered. 



I soon found, however, that the belief in the venomous character 

 of this " whip scorpion," or Thelyphonus giganteus, as it proved to 

 be, was almost universal. The negroes, especially, are in mortal 

 terror of it. Only a few days since a colored boy that I had em- 

 ployed in hauling wood brought me a small specimen, completely 

 crushed, with the triumphant announcement, " I've got him, but he 

 like to done strike me 'fore I seed him." 



" But how do they bite? " I asked, " with their claws? ' : 



