300 ARACHNIDA SCORPIONIDEA chap. 



these scorpions plentifully in arid, stony spots exposed to the 

 sun. They were always solitary, and if two were found under 

 the same stone, one was engaged in eating the other. Their 

 sight is so poor that they do not recognise each other without 

 absolute contact. 



Fabre established colonies in his garden and study, providing 

 them with suitable soil and sheltering stones. They dug holes 

 by reducing the earth to powder by means of the three anterior 

 pairs of legs — never using their pedipalpi in the operation — 

 and sweeping away the debris with the tail. From October to 

 March they ate nothing, rejecting all food offered to them, 

 though always awake and ready to resent disturbance. In April 

 appetite seemed to awaken, though a very trifling amount of food 

 seemed to suffice. At that time, too, they began to wander, and 

 apparently without any intention of returning, and they continued 

 daily to escape from the garden enclosure until the most 

 stringent measures were taken to keep them in. Not till they 

 were surrounded by glass and the framework of their cages covered 

 with varnished paper were their attempts to climb out of their 

 prison frustrated. Fabre came to the conclusion that they took 

 at least five years to attain their full size. 



His most interesting observations were concerned with their 

 mating habits, in connection with which he noted some extra- 

 ordinary phenomena,. After some very curious antics, in which 



the animals stood face 

 to face (Fig. 167) with 

 raised tails, which they 

 intertwined — evidently 

 with no hostile inten- 

 tion — they always in- 

 dulged in what Fabre 

 calls a "promenade a 



Fig. 168. — The " promenade d deux" ot Buthus ,i„,, >< i, j ■ i i 

 ocoiianus. (After Fabre. ) ^^^^^^' '^^'^^ !» hand, 



SO to speak, the male 

 seizing the chelae of the female with its own, and walking 

 backwards, while the female followed, usually without any 

 reluctance. This promenade occupied an hour or more, durino- 

 which the animals turned several times. At length, if in the 

 neighbourhood of a suitable stone, the male would die a hole, 

 without for a moment entirely quitting its hold of the female, 



