FACTS ABOUT THE SCORPION

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXIII, Issue 7485, 26 February 1885, Page 6

FACTS ABOUT THE SCORPION

(Correspondent Land and Water.)

A few years ago, whilst in the island of Jamaica, it was my fortunate chance to have an opportunity of observing some very curious facts in connection with that otherwise uninteresting genus of the Arachnida class commonly known as the scorpion j and. the curious traits of character in these insects which I am about to recount are of so wonderful a nature that, although they may be well known to some naturalists, it is not often that opportunities have been given for their close observation. Turning iover some old papers in my office one day, I suddenly came upon a large black scorpion, who promptly tried to beat. a precipitate retreat. Having read or heard somewhere that if you blow on a scorpion he will riot move, I tried the experiment, and must honestly confess that I was greatly astonished to find that it had. the desired effect. The scorpion stopped instantly, flattened himself close to the paper on which he had been running, and had all the appearance 'of'"" holding, on "for dear life, a« if fearful of being blown at any moment into the middle of next week. Whilst I continued to blow even quite lightly.he refused to move, though I pushed him with a pencil and shook the paper to which he clung so tenaciously. Directly I ceased blowing.he advanced cautiously, only to stop again at the slightest breath. I was thus able to secure him in a glass tumbler which happened to .be within reach of my hand, and then I determined to try another experiment as to the suicidal tendencies which I had heard rain in the veins of the " Pedipalpi" family. On the stone.floor of the kitchen attached to my office I arranged a circle of burning sticks about three yards in circumference, the sticks being so placed that though there were no means of exit through the fire, it was not intense, but small and quite bearable as regards heat within a few inches, so that the central part of the circle was perfectly cool. Into this centre I accordingly dropped my scorpion, who, on touching terra firma, darted off in a great hurry, only to be quickly brought to a halt on reaching within a few inches of the .periphery of the circle. After a shprt pause of reflection he deviated to 'the right, and ran once completely y round the circle as near to' the fire' sticks as it was prudent to venture. This he did' three times, often approaching the burning sticks quite closely in his anxious endeavours to escape. In about a quarter of an hour, finding that his efforts were use-' less, he retired almost into the exact centre of the circle, and there in a tragic manner raised his tail till the sting or spur was close to his head, gave himself two deliberate prods in the back of the neck, and thus miserably perished by his own hand. As I placed the body of the. suicide in a bottle of spirits, I almost regretted that I had not let him escape before he had resorted to such an extreme measure.

My last experience is even more curious than the preceding, as it shows a remarkable provision of nature that is, almost incredible. All I have read on this point is contained in the following words:—" The young scorpions are produced at various intervals, and are carried by. the parent for several days upon her back, during which time she never leaves her retreat." I was playing a game of billiards in the. clubroom of a small village in the Blue Mountains ; there was no ceiling to the room, the roof being covered, as is the universal custom in Jamaica, with cedar-wood shingles. My opponent was smoking a large pipe, and suddenly, just as I was about to play a stroke, what I thought was the contents of my friend's pipe fell on the table, close to the ball at which T was aiming. Instinctively I was on the point of brushing it off with my hand, when, to my amazement, I saw it was a moving mass, which on closer inspection turned out to be a very large female specimen of a scorpion,'from which ran away in every direction a number of perfectly-formed little scorpions about a quarter of an inch in length. The mother scorpion lay dying upon the billiard-cloth, and soon ended her feeble struggles, the whole of her back eaten out by her own offspring, of which, as they could not escape over the raised edge of the billiard-table, we killed the astonishing number of 38. They had not only been "carried by their parent," but they had lived on her; cleaning out her body from the shell of her back, so that she looked like an inverted cooked crab from which the edible portions have been removed. She had clung to her retreat in the shingled roof until the approach, of death, when she had fallen and given us this curious spectacle. told by the negro marker that the young scorpions always live thus at the expense of their mothers' life, and that by the time her strength is exhausted the horrid offspring are ready to shift for themselves. Truly the ways of nature are of ten inscrutable.