58 GENERATION OF INSECTS 



and if I had given credence only to what was dis- 

 closed to me and my friends by these extremely fine 

 instruments, I would have certainly declared that there 

 was no aperture in the sting. But I was not satisfied 

 with this evidence and therefore began to squeeze the 

 scorpion's weapon; nor did this means at first suc- 

 ceed, as it was of a hard, crustaceous substance, which 

 would not be compressed so as to allow the con- 

 tents to squirt out. I irritated the scorpion and 

 excited him to attack a steel blade with his sting, but no 

 sign was left on it of any liquid. I was about to re- 

 nounce further experiment and return to Galen's opin- 

 ion, when suddenly there appeared on the point of the 

 sting a very small, almost invisible drop of white water, 

 which I have since observed many times, when the scor- 

 pion is irritated and makes attacks with his tail. 



When I was making these experiments, one of the 

 Tunisian scorpions was killed by one of his companions ; 

 I thereupon took the sting and punctured forthwith the 

 breast of a pigeon with it four times; to the surprise of 

 the onlookers there seemed to be no effect whatever from 

 the punctures, and a slight doubt as to the venomosity 

 of the Berber scorpions began to take hold of me. Dr. 

 Pagni, mentioned above, writes to me from Tunis, that 

 the Moors of the country constantly affirm that no year 

 passes in which many men are not stung by scorpions, 

 and that their poison is terrible and acts with incredible 

 rapidity. Some time ago, says my friend, one Pietro da 

 Santis, a merchant of Tunis, who was wounded by one 

 of those little beasts in the left foot, suffered atrocious 

 pains not only in the affected part, but along the whole 

 thigh up to the shoulder. The man made great lamenta- 

 tion, and imagined that his whole left side was paralyzed. 



