Suicide or Hypnosis? 



upon the ground. There is not a movement; 

 the inertia is complete. Is the Scorpion 

 dead? It really looks like it. Perhaps he 

 has pinked himself with a thrust of his sting 

 that escaped me in the turmoil of the last 

 efforts. If he has actually stabbed himself, 

 if he has resorted to suicide, then he is dead 

 beyond a doubt: we have just seen how 

 quickly he succumbs to his own venom. 



In my uncertainty, I pick up the apparently 

 dead body with the tip of my forceps and lay 

 it on a bed of cool sand. An hour later, the 

 alleged corpse returns to life, as lusty as 

 before the ordeal. I repeat the process with 

 a second and third specimen. The results 

 are the same. After the frantic plunges of 

 the desperate victim, we have the same sud- 

 den inertia, with the creature sprawling flat 

 as though struck by lightning, and the same 

 return to life on the cool sand. 



It seems probable that those who invented 

 the story of the Scorpion committing suicide 

 were deceived by this sudden swoon, this 

 paralysing spasm, into which the high tem- 

 perature of the enclosure throws the exas- 

 perated beast. Too quickly convinced, they 

 left the victim to burn to death. Had they 

 been less credulous and withdrawn the ani- 

 mal in good time from its circle of fire, they 

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