49'4 SUPPLEMENT ON AllACHNIDA. 



sting protects the head, and becomes an essential weapon, 

 which the animal directs on all sides, for the purposes of 

 attack or defence. These scorpions fight together to the last 

 extremity, and finish by the one devouring the other. Divers 

 insects, either in the perfect or the larva-state, which they 

 seize with their forceps, and mash completely, constitute 

 their food. But they can support very long fasts, and M. 

 Dufour has preserved some during six months, deprived of all 

 kind of aliment, without their having appeared to have suf- 

 fered any thing. Redi had previously made a similar obser- 

 vation. They moult several times, like the other arachnida. 

 The females carry the young on their back ; the male does not 

 differ from the other sex, except in being a little smaller and 

 less bulky in the abdomen. 



The gestation of the scorpions is considerably longer than 

 that of insects. From the commencement of autumn, all the 

 adult females are fecundated. Their eggs are then lateral, 

 small, and pedicled. They augment in volume during the 

 winter, so that in spring their bulk is four times greater than 

 it was in autumn. They are at this period entirely in the 

 matrix. The gestation of the scorpion thus continues for 

 nearly a year, which is very extraordinary, even when com- 

 pared with that of red-blooded animals. 



The poisonous fluid which the scorpion distils through the 

 two pores of its sting is of a whitish colour, analogous to the 

 serosity of milk, and when spread on white paper, this fluid 

 produces a spot such as oil or grease would make, and the 

 stained paper, in drying becomes more consistent and trans- 

 parent. 



