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 aranei'des 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 proved 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. 
