SCORPIONS 53 



cine," that a scorpion was born in the head of a certain 

 man, an Italian, who had smelt sweet basil too freely. 



"'Twas perchance true, but not within belief 

 Of him who is the master of his mind." 



But if Houllier had believed what Galen wrote about 

 sweet basil in the second book of the " Properties of 

 Foods " such an absurdity would not have escaped his 

 pen. Michael Fehr, quoted by Sachs, was more accurate 

 in his statements and more commendable, for having read 

 in Galen that scorpions are not generated in sweet basil, 

 he tried the experiment, and found that Galen was right 

 and all the others wrong. Equally ignorant are those, 

 who assert that not only sweet basil, but other things, 

 such as watercress and rotten wood, produce these crea- 

 tures. Fortunio Liceto relates that J. Marta, the Nea- 

 politan, could breed scorpions from the soil of the earth 

 by sprinkling it with onion-juice, and the wonderful 

 secret mentioned by Avicenna was of similar nature. 

 Aristotle more truly taught that scorpions are generated 

 by the union of the males with the females, which do not 

 lay eggs subsequently, as is the habit of many other in- 

 sects, but bring forth the young scorpions alive and per- 

 fect according to their species. 



I also made frequent experiments with scorpions. 

 Having ordered a large quantity of them to be brought 

 to me from the mountains of Pistoia, I selected some fe- 

 males, which are easily distinguished from the males by 

 their large size, and on the twentieth of July I put them 

 separately into glass vessels, leaving them without food. 

 Some of them died before parturition but one of them, on 

 August fifth, brought forth, not as according to Pliny 



