CURIOUS CREATURES. 331 



the tail and sting. The one that thus escapes, they 

 say, becomes the avenger of the rest, and, at last, taking 

 advantage of its elevated position, puts its parents to 

 death." 



Topsell has some marvels to relate concerning the 

 generation of Scorpions : " And it is reported by Elianus, 

 that about Estamenus in India, there are abundance of 

 Scorpions generated, onely by corrupt raine water stand- 

 ing in that place. Also, out of the Baziliske beaten into 

 peeces, and so putrified, are Scorpions engendred. And 

 when as one had planted the herbe Basilica on a wall, 

 in the roome or place thereof hee found two Scorpions. 

 And some say that if a man chaw in his mouth, fasting, 

 this herbe Basill before he wash, and, afterwards, lay 

 the same abroade uncovered where no sun commeth at 

 it for the space of seaven nights, taking it in all the 

 daytime, he shall at length find it transmuted into a 

 Scorpion, with a tayle of seaven knots. 



" Hollerius, to take away all scruple of this thing, 

 writeth that in Italy, in his dayes, there was a man that 

 had a Scorpion bredde in his braine, by continuall 

 smelling to this herbe Basil ; and Gesner by relation of 

 an Apothecary in Fraunce, writeth also a storie of a 

 young mayde, who by smelling to Basill, fell into an 

 exceeding head-ach, whereof she died without cure, and, 

 after her death, beeing opened, there were found little 

 Scorpions in her braine. 



"Aristotle remembreth an herbe which he calleth Sisim- 

 brice, out of which putrified Scorpions are engendered. 

 And wee have showed already, in the history of the 

 Crocodile, that out of the Crocodile's egges doe many 

 times come Scorpions, which at their first egression doe 

 kill theyr dam that hatched them." 



