1887.] 



The Reputed Suicide of Scorpions. 



19 



I will briefly describe the experiments which have led to the above 

 results. 



1. If a dead scorpion be taken which is quite limp and not in a 

 state of rigour, it will be easily seen that the last four segments of 

 the tail are about the only portions of the body, whether on the 

 dorsal or ventral surface, where a scorpion could not sting itself. 

 Further, if two fighting scorpions be watched it will be seen that the 

 extent to which the sting can be moved about is perfectly wonderf ul. 



2. I have tried the experiment with a charcoal fire, with a burning 

 glass, and indeed a variety of other "cruel" means of leading the 

 scorpion to despair, and to attempt to end all by suicide, and have 

 noticed that in lashing the tail about scorpions so treated have stung 

 themselves. To take the burning glass experiment, if the rays be con- 

 centrated on any part of the body the scorpion brings his sting there 

 and endeavours to strike away the source of irritation (I have seen a 

 scorpion do this from whom I had removed the whole sting some 

 weeks previously), and sometimes the endeavours become more and 

 more frantic, and the point of the sting catches somewhere, but the 

 scorpion does not die unless the neat is concentrated on the back 

 when it soon succumbs, and this equally so even with the sting tied 

 down or previously removed. 



3. Upon the third proposition, which, if once established, is a 

 conclusive and positive refutation of the suicide theory, I have tried 

 a great many experiments. I have taken scorpions belonging to the 

 various species found here, and by holding the sting between a pair 

 of forceps and the scorpion in my hand I have pricked the scorpion 

 in various places with the sting and squeezed out its poison ; there is a 

 little bleeding from the wound. Then still holding the sting I have 

 taken a cockroach and squeezed out some more of the poison into it, 

 and always with these results : the scorpion lives for days, the cock- 

 roach becomes very sluggish at once, and dies in an hour or so ; it is 

 always considerably paralysed, and cannot run away far or fast. 

 I have also used a large cricket instead of a cockroach stung in the 

 femur of the large hind leg ; that leg becomes paralysed. Stung in 

 the same place on both sides both the hind legs become useless ; the 

 animal crawls away on the two anterior pairs of legs, but otherwise 

 appears happy. Stung in the thorax it becomes quite torpid ; when 

 placed on its back it is not able to turn over. These last experiments 

 show that my method of squeezing out the poison is perfectly effec- 

 tive. 



I then proceeded to try stinging one scorpion with another ; firstly, 

 both being specimens of the same species ; secondly, using different 

 species. There was always the same result, the stung individual 

 never died from the sting, although I think that occasionally it 

 became a trifle sluggish. 



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