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Curiosities-Serpents and Worms

warm tropical climates, it is seen a foot in length, and in every respect as large as a lobster, which it somewhat resembles in shape. There have been enumerated nine different kinds of this dangerous insect, including species and varieties, chiefly distinguished by their colour; there being scorpions yellow, brown, and ash-coloured; others that are the colour of rusty iron, green, pale yellow, black, claret colour, white, and gray. There are four principal parts distinguishable in this creature; the head, the breast, the belly, and the tail. The scorpion's head seems, as it were, jointed to the breast, in the middle of which are seen two eyes; and a little more forward, two eyes more, placed in the fore part of the head; these eyes are so small, that they are scarcely perceivable, and it is probable the creature has but little occasion for them. The mouth is furnished with two jaws; the undermost is divided into two, and the parts notched into each other, which serve the creature as teeth, and with which it breaks its food, and thrusts it into its mouth; these the sccrpion can at pleasure pull back into its mouth, so that no part of them can be seen. On each side of the head are two arms, each composed of four joints; the last of which is large, with strong muscles, and made in the manner of the claw of a lobster. Below the breast are eight articulated legs, each divided into six joints; the two hindmost of which are each provided with two crooked claws, here and there covered with hair. The belly is divided into seven little rings; from the lowest of which is continued a tail, composed of six joints, which are bristly, and formed like little globes, the last being armed with a crooked sting. This is that fatal instrument which renders this insect so formidable; it is long, pointed, hard, and hollow; it is pierced near the base with two small holes, through which, when the creature stings, it ejects a drop of poison, which is white, caustic, and fatal. The reservoir in which this poison is kept, is a small bladder near the tail, into which the venom is distilled by a peculiar apparatus. If this bladder be greatly pressed, the venom will be seen issuing out through the two holes above mentioned; it therefore appears, that when the creature stings, the bladder is pressed, and the venom issues through the two apertures into the wound.

There are few animals more formidable, or more truly mischievous, than the scorpion. As it takes refuge in a small place, and is generally found sheltering in houses, it must frequently sting those among whom it resides. In some of the towns of Italy, and in France, in the ci-devant province of Languedoc, it is one of the greatest pests that torment mankind; but its malignity in Europe is trifling, when compared to what the natives of Africa and the East are known to experience