THfc SCORPION. 



Ferocious disposition Mutual animosity. 



the courage of the scorpion against the large 

 spider, and enclosed several of both kinds in 

 glass vessels for that purpose. The spider at first 

 used all its efforts to iminesh the scorpion in its 

 web, which it immediately began spinning; but 

 the scorpion rescued itself from the danger by 

 stinging its adversary to death ; it soon after, 

 with its claws, cut off the legs of the spider, and 

 then suckled all the internal parts at its leisure. 

 If the scorpion's skin had not been so hard, 

 Wolkamer was of opinion that the spider would 

 have obtained the victory, for he had often seen 

 one of the same kind of spiders overcome and 

 kill a toad. 



Such is the ferocity of their temper, that they 

 are the cruellest of enemies to each other. Mau- 

 pertuis put about an hundred of them together 

 in the same glass; and they scarcely came into 

 contact, when they began to exert all their rage 

 in mutual destruction : there was nothing to be 



o 



seen but one universal carnage, and in a very few 

 days there remained only fourteen, which had 

 killed and devoured all the rest. But their unna- 

 tural malignity is still more apparent in their 

 cruelty to their offspring. The above gentleman 

 inclosed a female scorpion, big with young, in a 

 glass vessel, and she was seen to devour them as 

 fast as they were excluded ; there was but one 

 escaped the general destruction, and that it did 

 by taking refuge on the back of its parent ; and 

 this soon after avenged the cause of its brethren 



