PEDIPALPI — SCORPIONS. 323 



" Hollerius,^ to take away all scruple of this thing, writeth 

 that in Italy in his dayes there was a man that had a Scor- 

 pion bred in his brain by continuall smelling to this herb 

 basill ; and Gesner, by relation of an apothecary in France, 

 writeth likewise a story of a young maid who, by smelling 

 to basill, fell into an exceeding headache, whereof she died 

 without cure, and after death, being opened, there were 

 found little Scorpions in her brain. 



"Aristotle remembreth an herb which he calleth sissira- 

 bria, out of which putrefied Scorpions are engendered, as 

 he writeth. And we have shewed already, in the history of 

 the Crocodile, that out of the Crocodile's egges do many 

 times come Scorpions, which at their first egression do kill 

 their dam that hatched them, which caused Archelaus, which 

 wrote epigrams of wonders unto Ptolemaeus, to sing of Scor- 

 pions in this manner : 



In vos dissolvit morte, et redigit crocodilum 

 Natura extiuctum, Scorpii omnipotens. 



Which may be Englished thus : 



To you by Scorpions death the omnipotent 

 Ruines the crocodil in nature's life extinct." 2 



The remarks referred to by Topsel in the last paragraph 

 in his history of the Crocodile are as follows : 



" It is said by Philes that, after the egge is laid by the 

 crocodile, many times there is a cruel Stinging Scorpion 

 which cometh out thereof, and woundeth the crocodile that 

 laid it.^ 



" The Scorpion also and the crocodile are enemies one to 



1 B. i. ch. 1. 



^ Hist, of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, p. 753. — Scorpions are 

 bred "from the carkass of the crocodile, as Antigonus affirms, lib. 

 de mirab. hist. cong. 24. For in Archelaus there is an epigram of a 

 certain Egyptian in these words: 



In vos dissolvit morte, et redigit crocodilum, 

 Natura extinctum (Scorpioli) omniparens. 



In English : 



The carkass of dead crocodiles is made the feed, 

 By common nature, whence Scorpions breed." 



Moufet's Theatr. Ins., p. 208. Topsel's Trans., p. 1052. 

 3 Qua supra, p. (385. 



