250 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



from whom I have obtained an offspring. I reckoned on 

 these too for an increase in the population ; all the appear- 

 ances authorized me to do so. Winter comes and none of 

 them has answered my expectations. The business, which 

 seemed close at hand, has been put off to next year : a 

 fresh proof of long pregnancy, very singular in the case 

 of an animal of an inferior order. 



I transfer each mother and her product, separately, 

 into medium-sized receptacles, which facilitate the niceties 

 of the observation. At the early hour of my visit, those 

 brought to bed during the night have still a part of the 

 brood sheltered under their belly. Pushing the mother 

 aside with a straw, I discover, amid the heap of young 

 not yet hoisted on the maternal back, objects that utterly 

 upset all that the books have taught me on this subject. 

 The Scorpions, they say, are viviparous. The learned 

 expression lacks exactitude : the young do not see the 

 light directly with the formation which we know of. 



And this must be so. How would you have the out- 

 stretched claws, the sprawling legs, the shrivelled tails 

 go through the maternal passages ? The cumbrous little 

 animal could never pass through the narrow outlets. It 

 must needs come into the world packed up and sparing of 

 space. 



The remnants found under the mothers, in fact, show 

 me eggs, real eggs, similar, or very nearly, to those which 

 anatomy extracts from the ovaries at an advanced stage 

 of pregnancy. The little animal, economically com- 

 pressed to the dimensions of a grain of rice, has its tail 

 laid along its belly, its claws flattened against its chest, 

 its legs pressed to its sides, so that the small, easy-gliding, 

 oval lump leaves not the smallest protuberance. On the 

 forehead, dots of an intense black mark the eyes. The 



