398 POPULAR SCII:NCE MONTHLY. 



or in the mad rush of the public for the novelty of the hour, is 

 not in replanting the hedgerows of custom. We must go for- 

 ward, keeping in mind, however, that the chief present need is 

 not to discredit the past but to discredit the mass. The spell of 

 ancestors is broken ; let us next break the spell of numbers. 

 Without lessening obedience to the decision of majorities, let us 

 cultivate a habit of doubt and review. In a good democracy- 

 blind imitation can never take the place of individual effort to 

 weigh and judge. The frantic desire of frightened deer or 

 buffalo to press to the very center of the throng does not befit 

 civilized man. The huddling instinct has no place in strong 

 character. Democracy's ideal is a society of men with neither 

 the " back "-look on the past nor yet the " out "-look on their 

 fellows, but with the "in "-look upon reason and conscience. We 

 must hold always to a sage Emersonian individualism, that, 

 without consecrating an ethics of selfishness, a religion of dis- 

 sent, or a policy of anarchism, shall brace men to stand against 

 the rush of the mass. 



ARE SCORPIONS MATRICIDES AND SUICIDES? 



By Dr. JUAN VILAEO, 



PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY, HAVANA UNIVERSITY; FISH COMMISSION'S NATURALIST. 



IT is by no means a rare thing to see a simple coincidence des- 

 ignated and accepted as a cause. Such is the case with the 

 erroneous though common and deep-rooted belief that the newly 

 born scorpions devour their mother during the first period of 

 their life. Science has dispelled this vulgar error, as it has done 

 away with the absurd assertions about the vegetating icasp and 

 other species of animals. 



It is a well-known fact that the little scorpions, when they 

 come into life, place themselves at the sides and upon the back 

 of their mother, where they remain huddled together while their 

 transformation is being completed, or, in other words, until they 

 change their first skins (exuviation or ecdysis). ' 



At this moment the little scorpions break away and com- 

 mence on their own hook their lively search for food, thus enter- 

 ing the wide field of the struggle for existence. 



During this period of their life the mother may die. The diffi- 

 cult and hazardous process of delivery is oftentimes the cause of 

 such death. The ants hasten to do away with the remains, and 

 this is the origin of the common but erroneous belief that the 

 mother has fallen a victim to the voracity of her own offspring. 



As I have always been impressed by the grandeur of small 

 things, and as phenomena of apparent insignificance are often of 



