THE FALSE-SCORPIONS OF SCOTLAND 99 



sary to prove whether or not the spinning faculty is 

 common to all False-scorpions. 



Enemies. 



In alluding to the enemies of False- scorpions, I find 

 myself standing on the verge of another great unexplored 

 territory. I have had repeated indications of the raids made 

 by Ichneumons on these creatures, and on August 9, 1907, 

 I received a hint of the probable method adopted by the 

 Ichneumons in stinging the False-scorpions. On that day, at 

 Dalmahoy Crags, I saw an Ichneumon at vv^ork on a Spider's 

 cocoon. The Spider had selected as the site of her nest an 

 inequality on the under-surface of a stone, and she had 

 covered her mass of eggs with a thick layer of silk which 

 served the double purpose of holding them in position and 

 affording them the needed protection. On this silken cover- 

 ing the tiny Ichneumon was resting, her antennae in continual 

 motion. Suspecting that the Ichneumon was stinging the 

 egg-mass, I examined her carefully with my lens and saw 

 her with the greatest ease thrust her sharp ovipositor its 

 full length perpendicularly through the silk, and, rapidly 

 withdrawing it, insert it immediately in another spot. She 

 did this very smartly several times before I disturbed her. 

 I then opened the silken mass, and found inside eighteen 

 Spider's eggs, of such small size that it took three of them 

 to equal in breadth the diameter of an ordinary pin-head. 

 From this observation I am led to believe that the ichneumon 

 of a False-scorpion rests on the nest of the False-scorpion, and, 

 piercing the clay covering of the nest with her sharp ovipositor, 

 deposits her Qgg or eggs in the embryo mass attached to the 

 False-scorpion. The young Ichneumon (for only one reaches 

 perfection) is provided with food in the embryo mass of 

 the False-scorpion, and is, I should imagine, quite able 

 to enter the body of the False-scorpion through the genital 

 pore. 



My information regarding the ichneumons of False- 

 scorpions is practically confined to the pupae. I first found 

 an Ichneumon's pupa in a nest of O. nmscoriLin^ containing 

 the chitinous remains of the animal, at Woodcockdale in 



