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The Scorpion (Batavia where they grow twelve)

In Batavia, where they grow twelve inches long, there is no removing any piece of furniture without the utmost danger of being stung by them. Bosman assures us, that along the Gold Coast they are often found larger than a lobster, and that their sting is inevitably fatal.

In Europe, however, they are by no means so large, so venomous, or so numerous. The general size of this animal does not exceed two or three inches, and its sting is very seldom fatal. No animal in the creation seems endued with such an irascible nature; they have often been seen, when taken and put into a place of security, to exert all their rage against the sides of the glass vessel that contained them. They will attempt to sting a stick when put near them, and attack a mouse or a frog, while these animals are far from offering any injury. Maupertuis put three scorpions and a mouse into the same vessel together, and they soon stung the little animal in different places. The mouse, thus assaulted, stood for some time upon the defensive, and at last killed them all, one after another. He tried these experiments, in order to see whether the mouse, after it had killed, would eat the scorpions; but the little quadruped seemed satisfied with the victory, and even survived the severity of the wounds it had received.

Wolkemar tried the courage of the scorpion against the large spider, and inclosed several of both kinds in glass vessels for that purpose. The success of this combat was very remarkable. The spider at first used all his efforts to entangle the scorpion in his web, which it immediately began spinning; but the scorpion rescued itself from the danger, by stinging its adversary to death; and soon after cut off, with its claws, all the legs of the spider, and then sucked all the internal parts at its leisure. If the scorpion's skin had not been so hard. hard, Wolkemar is of opinion that the spider would have obtained the victory; for he had often seen one of these spiders destroy a toad. The fierce spirit of this animal is equally dangerous to its own species, for scorpions are the cruellest enemies to each other. Maupertuis put about a hundred of them together in the same glass; and they scarcely came in contact before they began to exert all their rage in mutual destruction: there was nothing to be seen but one universal carnage, without any distinction of age or sex; so that in a few days there remained only fourteen, which had killed and devoured all the rest. But their unnatural malignity is still more apparent, in their cruelty to their offspring. He inclosed a female scorpion, big with young, in a glass vessel, and she was seen to devour them as fast as they were excluded; there was but one of the number that escaped the general destruction, by taking refuge on the back of its parent; and this soon after revenged the cause of its brethren, by killing the old one in its turn. Such is the terrible and unrelenting nature of this insect, that it is asserted, when driven to an extremity, that the scorpion. will even destroy itself. The following experiment was ineffectually tried by Maupertuis: "But (says Mr. Goldsmith) I am so well assured of it by many eye-witnesses, who have seen it both in Italy and America, that I have no doubt remaining of its veracity. A scorpion newly caught is placed in the midst of a circle of burning charcoal, and thus an egress prevented on every side; the scorpion, as I am assured, runs about a minute round the circle, in hopes of escaping, but finding that impossible, it stings itself on the back of the head, and in this manner the undaunted suicide instantly expires." It is happy for mankind that these animals are so destructive to each other; since otherwise they would multiply in so great a degree as to render some countries uninhabitable. The male and female of this insect are very easily distinguishable; the male being smaller, and less hairy. The female brings forth her young alive, and perfect in their kind. Redi having bought a quantity of scorpions, selected their females, and, putting them in separate glass vessels, kept them for some days without food. In about five days one of them brought forth thirtyeight young ones, well shaped, and of a milk-white colour, which changed every day more and more into a dark rusty hue. Another female, in a different vessel, brought forth twentyseven of the same colour; and the day following, the young ones seemed all fixed to the back and belly of the female. For near a fortnight all these continued alive and well, but afterwards some of them died daily; until, in about a month, they all died, except two. Were it worth the trouble, these animals might be kept living as long as curiosity should think proper. Their chief food is worms and insects; and upon a proper supply of these, their lives might be lengthened to their natural extent: how long that may be we are not told; but, if we may argue from analogy, it cannot be less than seven or eight years, and perhaps, in the larger kind, double that duration. As they have somewhat the form of a lobster, so they resemble that animal in casting their shell; or, more properly, their skin, since it is softer by far than the covering of the lobster, and set with hairs, which grow from it in great abundance, particularly at the joinings. The young, prior to their birth, lie each covered up in its own membrane to the number of forty or fifty, and united to each other by an oblong thread, so as to exhibit altogether the form of a chaplet.

Such is the manner in which the common scorpion produces its young; but there is a scorpion of America, produced from the egg, in the manner of the spider. The eggs are no larger