ON ARACHNIDA. 489 



run swiftly, curving their tail arch-like over the back. They 

 are able to turn it in all directions, and employ it as an 

 offensive and defensive weapon. They seize with their claws 

 wood-lice and different insects, such as carabi, weevils, orthop"- 

 tera, &c. wound them with the sting of their tail, pushing it 

 forward, and then devour them, placing them between their 

 mandibles and jaws. They are fond of the eggs of aranei'des 

 and insects ; they even attack araneides much larger than 

 themselves, and appear to carry on a special war against them. 



They vary considerably in size : those of Europe are 

 scarcely more than an inch in length, whereas in India there 

 are some five inches long. It is supposed that these are very 

 venomous, and that the wound which they make with their 

 sting very frequently causes death, from the introduction of 

 the poisonous fluid. 



It is an error, however, to believe that all these animals are 

 venomous to us. It has been pi'oved that those of Tuscany 

 are not so, for the peasants of that country touch them, and 

 allow themselves to be stung by them, without suffering any 

 serious inconvenience. This observation, however, must not 

 be too generally extended, as we find from the experiments of 

 Redi and Maupertuis. These writers, who have made many 

 experiments on the effect of the poison of another species of 

 scorpion, larger than the common {occitanus), and which is 

 found in Languedoc, at Tunis, in Spain, &c. have seen young- 

 pigeons die in convulsions, and vertigoes, five hours after 

 they were stung, and others which evinced no sign of pain 

 from the wounds which they had received. Redi attributes 

 this difference to the exhaustion of the scorpion, which, in 

 his opinion, has need of time to recruit its forces for the pur- 

 pose of reproducing venom. Of this he had a proof in a 

 fresh experiment which he made after having allowed the 

 scorpion to repose for a single night. 



