THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION 251 



tiny insect floats in a drop of transparent moisture, which 

 is for the moment its world, its atmosphere, contained 

 by a pelHcle of exquisite delicacy. 



These objects are really eggs. There were thirty or 

 forty of them, at first, in the Languedocian Scorpion's 

 litter ; not quite so many in the Black Scorpion's. Inter- 

 fering too late in the nocturnal lying-in, I am present at 

 the finish. The little that remains, however, is sufficient 

 to convince me. The Scorpion is in reality oviparous ; 

 only her eggs hatch very speedily and the liberation of the 

 young follows very soon after the laying. 



Now how does this liberation take place ? I enjoy the 

 remarkable privilege of witnessing it. I see the mother 

 with the point of her mandibles delicately seizing, lacer- 

 ating, tearing off and lastly swallowing the membrane of 

 the egg. She strips her new-born offspring with the fas- 

 tidious care and fondness of the sheep and the cat when 

 eating the fetal wrappers. Not a scratch on that scarce- 

 formed flesh, not a strain, in spite of the clumsiness of the 

 tool employed. 



I cannot get over my surprise : the Scorpion has initi- 

 ated the living into acts of maternity bordering on our 

 own. In the distant days of the coal vegetation, when 

 the first Scorpion appeared, the gentle passions of child- 

 birth were already preparing. The egg, the equivalent 

 of the long-sleeping seed, the egg, as already possessed 

 by the reptile and the fish and later to be possessed by the 

 bird and almost the whole body of insects, was the con- 

 temporary of an infinitely more delicate organism which 

 ushered in the viviparousness of the higher animals. The 

 incubation of the germ did not take place outside, in the 

 heart of the threatening conflict of things ; it was accom- 

 plished in the mother's womb. 



