XII SCORPIONIDEA—SCORPIONS 299 
poor. A moving object within the range of a few inches is 
certainly perceived, but it has to be touched before its nature is 
recognised. Some writers have attributed to scorpions a keen 
sense of hearing, and so-called “auditory hairs” are described on 
the tibia of the pedipalp, but Pocock came to the conclusion 
that Parabuthus capensis and Huscorpius carpathicus were 
entirely deaf, and Lankester could obtain no indication of 
auditory powers in the case of Prionurus. The sense of touch 
is extremely delicate, and seems to reside in the hairs with 
which the body and appendages are more or less thickly clothed. 
The pectines are special tactile organs. That they are in some 
way related to sex seems probable from the fact that they are 
larger in the male and sometimes curiously modified in the 
female, but they appear to be of use also in determining the 
nature of the ground traversed by the animal, being long in 
such species as raise the body high on the legs, and short in 
those that adopt a more grovelling posture. Pocock noticed 
that a scorpion which had walked over a portion of a cockroach 
far enough for the pectines to come in contact with it immedi- 
ately backed and ate it. 
As is the case with most poisonous animals, their ferocity 
has been much exaggerated; they never sting unless molested, 
and their chief anxiety is to slink off unobserved. The fables 
that they kill their young, and that when hard pressed they 
commit suicide by stinging 
themselves to death, perhaps 
hardly deserve serious con- 
sideration. The latter accusa- 
tion is disproved by the fact 
that a scorpion’s poison has 
no effect upon itself, or even 
upon a cClosely-allied species. 
Some writers think that im 
the frantic waving of the 
“tail,” which is generally 
induced by strong excitement, 
a scorpion may sometimes 
inadvertently wound itself with the sharp point of its telson. 
Fabre gives a fascinating account of the habits of Buthus 
occitanus, Which occurs in the south of France. He found 
Fig. 167.—Buthus occitanus in the mating 
period. (After Fabre.) 
