388 Notes on the Natural History of the Scorpion. 



"With regard to the scorpion the truth seems to be that dur- 

 ing the mouth the young cling to the mother, they are, one 

 after the other, devoured ; that four only escape the predaceous 

 parent or the devouring community of young ones, and go 

 forth to perpetuate the species. More than four hundred scor- 

 pions, sent from Italy to Cuvier, in Paris, were reduced in a 

 short time to a few individuals. Monsieur Leon Dufour, who 

 has described the scorpion roussdtre — the Scorpio oceitanus — 

 the scorpion de Souvignargues, on which Maupertuis tried expe- 

 riments — a common scorpion of Spain — says he never met with 

 two of them under the same shelter. They most usually live 

 solitary, digging in the earth a round hole, where they lie down 

 squatted. When they quit their retreat to seek food, it is at 

 night or in the evening. They carry what they have caught, 

 held fast in their pincers, with their tail straightened out be- 

 hind, but when surprised with their load, they throw back 

 their claws and then bend the tail over the body. The head 

 being protected, the sting, essentially a movable weapon, is 

 directed effectually any way, either for attack or defence. 

 Having given this precise account of the scorpions, as he ob- 

 served them casually and particularly, he says : " se battent 

 entre eux a outrance, et finissent par s'entre-devorer." They 

 fight to excess, and the successful combatant makes a feast of 

 his vanquished enemy. Both Dufour andRedi state that they 

 can endure long fasts ; that they moult as the spider does often, 

 and, in common with the tarantula, which Leon Dufour ob- 

 served minutely and has particularly described, they cany 

 their young ones on the back. 



It is to Latreille, who has collected all these facts in his ar- 

 ticle on Scorpions, in the Dictionnaire d'Histoire Xaturelle, 

 that I am indebted for accurate traits in the habit and charac- 

 ter of the scorpion. In his description of the spider, he shows 

 us that the female, careful and watchful of its young, yet 

 is so insatiably carnassier, that she devours the male after 

 coupling ; that the young, though they live associated in the 



