Chap. 30.] 
SCORPIONS. 
29 
generally supposed that it is the female spider that spins, 
and the male that lies in wait for prey, thus making an equal 
division of their duties. 
CHAP. 29. THE GENEEATION OF SPIDEES. 
Spiders couple^^ backwards, ai^d produce maggots like eggs ; 
for I ought not to defer making some mention of this subject, 
seeing, in fact, that of most insects there is hardly anything 
else to be said. All these eggs they lay in their webs, but 
scattered about, as they leap from place to place while laying 
them. The phalangium is the only spider that lays a con- 
siderable number of them, in a hole ; and as soon as ever 
the progeny is hatched it devours its mother, and very often 
the male parent as well, for that, too, aids in the process of 
incubation. These last produce as many as three hundred 
eggs, the others a smaller number. Spiders take three days 
to hatch their eggs. They come to their full growth in 
twenty-eight days. 
CHAP. 30. (25.) — SCOEPIONS. 
In a similar manner to the spider, the land scorpion also pro- 
duces maggots^^ similar to eggs, and dies in a similar manner. 
This animal is a dangerous scourge, and has a venom like that 
of the serpent ; with the exception that its effects are far 
more^^ painful, as the person who is stung will linger for 
three days before death ensues. The sting is invariably 
fatal to virgins, and nearly always so to matrons. It is so 
to men also, in the morning, when the animal has issued from 
its hole in a fasting state, and has not yet happened to dis- 
charge its poison by any accidental stroke. The tail is always 
ready to strike, and ceases not for an instant to menace, so 
that no opportunity may possibly be missed. The animal 
strikes too with a sidelong blow, or else by turning the tail 
^9 They copulate in a manner dissimilar to that of any other insects — 
the male fecundates the female by the aid of feelers, which he introduces 
into the vulva of the female situate beneath the anterior part of the 
abdomen. 
Cuvier remarks, that the scorpion is viviparous ; but the young are 
white when born, and wrapped up in an oval mass, for which reason they 
may easily be taken for maggots or grubs. 
^1 This must be understood of the scorpion of Egypt, Libya, and Syria. 
The sting of that of the south of Europe is not generally dangerous. 
