CHAPTER XXVI

Scorpions and suicide—The act proved—Intention probable—Conflicting evidence—Scorpions and cockroaches—Concentrating backwards—Economy of poison—Decorous feeding.

THE assertion that scorpions are occasionally luminous—if indeed it has ever been seriously made—does not appear to have received confirmation. Of fire, indeed, these creatures have a horror, but that probably relates to its property—heat—to which they are extremely sensitive. The popular belief is, that, if surrounded by fire, a scorpion will deliberately sting itself to death. Of the fact, or, at least, of the fact of the self-inflicted sting, there can be little doubt, but in regard to the motive there is room for difference of opinion. Mr. Pocock says, truly enough, that it isà prioriimprobable that the scorpion has any intention of killing itself.[154]But what, then, is its intention in stinging itself, supposing that it deliberately does so? Nor must it be forgotten that the idea of death—of destruction—must be indissolubly associated in the scorpion’s mind with the use of its sting, since it uses it with that purpose only, and that is the result which constantly attends its use. Is it, then, really so improbable that it stings itself with the same intention as that with which it stings other creatures?—or, rather, with what other possible intention can it do so, assuming the act to be a voluntary one?

Nor would it be necessary to prove the intention that the sting, thus delivered, should be fatal in its effects, and, in regard to this, Mr. Bourne has satisfied himself by experiments with some Indian scorpions that a self-inflicted wound, or even wounds inflicted by individuals of the same species on one another, have no effect. On the other hand, he found that a moderately high temperature was fatal to his scorpions, and so concludes that this has been the real cause of death in all such cases as we are here considering.[154]

The above theory, however, hardly accords with the experience of Mr. W. G. Bidie, also of India, and that very part of it where Mr. Bourne’s experiments were made—viz. Madras. Writing toNature, he says: “One morning a servant brought me a large specimen of this scorpion (the common black one of Southern India), which, having stayed out too long in its nocturnal rambles, had apparently got bewildered at daybreak and been unable to find its way home. To keep it safe the creature was at once put into a glazed entomological case. Having a few leisure minutes in the course of the forenoon, I thought I would see how my prisoner was getting on, and to have a better view of it, the case was placed in a window in the rays of the hot sun. The light and heat seemed to irritate it very much, and this recalled to my mind a story which I had read somewhere that a scorpion on being surrounded with fire had committed suicide. I hesitated about subjecting my pet to such a terrible ordeal, but taking a common botanical lens, I focussed the rays of the sun on its back” (so that Apollo may have flayed Marsyas as amild alternative). “The moment this was done it began to run hurriedly about the case, hissing and spitting in a very fierce way. This experiment was repeated some four or five times with like results, but on trying it once again the scorpion turned up its tail and plunged the sting, quick as lightning, into its own back. The infliction of the wound was followed by a sudden escape of fluid, and a friend, standing by me, called out, ‘See! it has stung itself: it is dead.’ And sure enough in less than half a minute life was quite extinct.”

This seems plain enough. The scorpion had not died of the heat, up to the moment at which it stung itself—an act which would require some vital energy. It did sting itself, and in less than half a minute afterwards it was dead. Moreover, as the experiments with the lens were intermittent, there seems no more reason why the last one should have been fatal than the other four or five. It is, perhaps, possible to imagine that the scorpion was almost dead before, that the last heating caused it to expire, and that in the moment of doing so it stung itself by involuntary muscular action. There is nothing, however, in the narrative to suggest this, but quite the contrary.

Supposing the sting to have been a voluntary act, what could the scorpion have intended except to injure itself? Had it ever in its life used its sting with any other purpose than that of doing injury? Mr. Bidie adds: “I have written this brief note to show (1) that animals may commit suicide; (2) that the poison of certain animals may be destructive to themselves.”[155]

Writing several years later, also toNature, Dr. Allen Thomson,F.R.S., gives the following account, not, indeed, of his own experience, but that of an eye-witness in whom he feels full confidence. He says: “While residing, many years ago, during the summer months, at the baths of Sulla, in Italy, in a somewhat damp locality, my informant, together with the rest of the family, was much annoyed by the frequent intrusion of small black scorpions into the house, and their being secreted among the bedclothes, in shoes, and other articles of dress. It thus became necessary to be constantly on the watch for these troublesome creatures, and to take means for their removal and destruction. Having been informed by the natives of the place that the scorpion would destroy itself if exposed to a sudden light, my informant and her friends soon became adepts in catching the scorpions and disposing of them in the manner suggested. This consisted in confining the animal under an inverted drinking-glass or tumbler, below which a card was inserted, and then, waiting till dark, suddenly bringing the light of a candle near to the glass in which the animal was confined. No sooner was this done than the scorpion invariably showed signs of great excitement, running round and round the interior of the tumbler with reckless velocity for a number of times. This state having lasted for a minute or more, the animal suddenly became quiet, and, turning its tail on the hinder part of its body over its back, brought its recurved sting down upon the middle of the head, and, piercing it forcibly, in a few seconds became quite motionless, and, in fact, quite dead. This observation was repeated very frequently.”[156]

Here, again, it is difficult to see how a mistake in observation can have occurred, and admitting the facts to be true, they go far beyond Mr. Bourne’s theory to account for these phenomena, which, however, has been adopted by Mr. Pocock, as the result of his own experiments. In the first place, it is not here the heat—unless by association of ideas—but the actual sight of the flame that terrifies the scorpion, and death, apparently, is inflicted as the result of that. Again, there can be no doubt as to the self-inflicted stinging, and from the manner of it, as well as its invariability, it seems to have been deliberate. Whether death was the result of it or not, we have the act, and the act, if a voluntary one, must have implied a destructive intention. It hardly seems possible, however, that the light of a candle, outside a tumbler, though held near it, can in so short a time have made the interior so hot as to kill the scorpion, whilst, on the other hand, the poison from the creature’s sting must have pierced its brain, and a few seconds afterwards it was dead.

If, then, we decide to disbelieve in the story of scorpions committing suicide when unable to escape from fire, we must explain away these two accounts, which we can do by supposing the narrators to be either dishonest or stupid. There is no other way that I can see, so if neither of these do, we ought to believe the story. However, there is plenty of evidence which points in the opposite direction, and the advantage of this is that we can take our choice.

Scorpions are interesting animals to keep in captivity,and their habits under these conditions have been carefully studied by Mr. Pocock.[154]When supplied with sand they dig pits in it, in which they lie during the greater part of the day. The second and third pairs of legs are used for this purpose, the scorpion raising itself upon the other two pairs, as well as, to a certain extent, upon the claws and the end of the tail. In this position it kicks the sand backwards from under it, and then when the excavation is sufficiently deep, sweeps away the accumulated heap, with its tail, so that the edge of its lurking-place is on a level with the surrounding surface. It can thus, as it lies there, obtain an uninterrupted view, which the better enables it to receive with proper attention any creature of the requisite size and quality that approaches its portals. Such creatures are principally insects, spiders, centipedes, wood-lice, and the like—but here we may remember one little spider that imitates a scorpion, and may therefore approach with impunity, at least if the disparity in size be not too great, for whilst some scorpions are quite small, others attain a length of eight or nine inches, with a bulk more than in proportion to their length.

In captivity, and, no doubt, under nature too, when they happen to come across them, scorpions will eat cockroaches, but a cockroach is not altogether a defenceless creature, and sometimes a large one will give battle, and even with success. The weapons upon which, in these cases, it relies are its powerful hind legs armed, as they are, with spines which project backwards. Backwards accordingly it advances upon the scorpion, and increasingits pace suddenly, when at the requisite distance salutes the astonished enemy with a shower of kicks. So unexpected is this mode of assault that it is sometimes effective, even against so redoubtable an opponent as a scorpion, whilst a tarantula spider has been known to fly, panic-stricken, before or rather behind a large cockroach. But such efforts, however heroic, can have only a transient success, where the conditions are so unequal. Jaws and sting must prevail against soft bodies armed only with spiny legs. “Alla stoccatacarries it away.” Generally the poor cockroach is seized—sometimes, in the first instance, by the antennæ—as it comes inadvertently too near to the scorpion, or even trespasses upon its back. At once the tail is bent above it, and the fatal sting enters its body. Paralysis ensues, and would no doubt be quickly followed by death, even were the scorpion, thereupon, to retire. As it is, however, it is difficult to say whether the victim dies more of the sting or of being eaten.

From the latter process, at any rate, there is no recovery, as may be seen in the case of smaller cockroaches, upon whom the scorpion, from motives of economy, does not always waste its poison. It merely, when thus provident, holds the contemptible creature in its claws, whilst bringing to bear upon it its two pairs of chelæ or real jaws, which act upon the same principle as those ofGaleodes vorax, if the reader remember. It feeds in a leisurely manner, the impatience of the cockroach not affecting it in the least. Two hours for a good-sized one—apièce de résistance—is not considered too long by the scorpion.

Scorpions, it appears, use their stings in a very careful, deliberate manner. It is not a mere random thrust with them, lunged in anywhere, just as the body of an insect happens to come. On the contrary, they feel about this body, most anxiously, with their tail, till they have found a soft spot in it, and then introduce their sting in a careful manner. In fact, they sting an insect in much the way that Isaak Walton impaled a frog upon the hook—“tenderly as if they loved him”—and for the same class of reason, viz. to make a workmanlike job of it, and not break their stings against the harder parts of its body, for the point of this weapon is delicate and might get chipped against the hard shards of a beetle, or other such resisting surface.

For the same prudent reason the tail is carried aloft, over the scorpion’s back, when it walks, so that the whole organ, but especially the point of it, which is curled round again underneath, is preserved from contact with the outer world. The sting, or rather the sides of the poison vesicle just above it, are clothed with hairs, which are, no doubt, delicately tactile, and the same may be said of the tail and various other parts of the body. Touch, indeed, is the principal sense which conveys impressions to the soul of the scorpion. Sight is defective, and hearing does not seem to exist.

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

1.The Concise Natural History, p. 551.

2.In conjunction with Dr. Sandias, whose name must be understood as accompanying Grassi’s—for the most part—when the latter is referred to.

3.Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, vols. 39 and 40.

4.A nymph is the free-moving active equivalent of the chrysalis amongst moths and butterflies.

5.Nests built in chemical glass tubes and thus under close observation.

6.Chambers’s Encyclopædia.

7.Nature, March 23rd, 1893.

8.The Cambridge Natural History, vol. 6, p. 134.

9.Quarterly Journal of Microscopic Science, vols. 39 and 40.

10.Others call theminquilines.

11.Kirby,Marvels of Ant Life, p. 100.

12.Ifcadaverfor corpse or carcase, why notdiesfor day, which is just as good English? Or why not all Latin, with a glossary, or—better still—a translation?

13.Charles Janet,Comptes Rendus, 1897, pp. 583-5.

14.The American Naturalist, December, 1901.

15.Ibid., November, 1900.

16.The Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine(quoted in theAmerican Naturalist), August, 1896.

17.Leland O. Howard,The Insect Book.

18.Dr. Æneas Munro,The Locust Plague and its Suppression.

19.E. Selous,Bird Watching, pp. 213-15, 271, etc.

20.Dr. Æneas Munro,The Locust Plague and its Suppression.

21.Dr. Æneas Munro,The Locust Plague and its Suppression.

22.The Agricultural Gazetteof New South Wales, March, 1900.

23.Dr. Æneas Munro,The Locust Plague and its Suppression.

24.The Agricultural Gazetteof New South Wales, March, 1900.

25.Leland O. Howard,The Insect Book. It has, however, been asserted, I know not with what truth, that Mr. Scudder was mistaken in this particular, and changed his opinion.

26.Leland O. Howard,The Insect Book.

27.The American Naturalist, April, 1898.

28.Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, vol. 5, p. 286.

29.Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1900, pp. 837-69.

30.Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, vol. 5, p. 286.

31.Nature, vol. 44, p. 451.

32.Leland O. Howard,The Insect Book.

33.Plato.

34.The above account, with the translation of the verses, is from Mr. Leland’s work on Etruria. I have, however, altered some lines, in order to retain the Italian namecavallettainstead of the American Katydid, which jars horribly here.

35.Vol. 57.

36.Appleton’sPopular Scientific Monthly, vol. v.

37.Buckton,Monograph of the British Cicadæ or Tettigidæ.

38.White’sNatural History of Selborne, Letter liii. p. 283 (stereotyped edition).

39.Buckton,Monograph of the British Cicadæ or Tettigidæ.

40.Leland O. Howard,The Insect Book.

41.The Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine, October, 1900.

42.Hudson,The Naturalist in La Plata, pp. 131, 32.

43.Buckton,Monograph of the British Aphides, vol. i

44.The Concise Knowledge Library,Natural History, pp. 601, 602.

45.Darwin,Origin of Species, pp. 207, 208.

46.“Letter to the Smithsonian Institute,”The American Naturalist, September, 1874, p. 565.

47.Belt,The Naturalist in Nicaragua, 1874, p. 226.

48.February, 1898, vol. 14.

49.Lubbock,Ants, Bees, and Wasps, p. 72.

50.Kirby,Text-book of Entomology, p. 113.

51.It appeared, I think, originally in theBombay Journaland is reproduced in one of the leading entomological magazines.

52.Darwin,Origin of Species, pp. 216, 217, 218.

53.Rev. Farren White,Ants and their Ways, pp. 177-9.

54.Lubbock,Ants, Bees, and Wasps, pp. 87-9.

55.Rev. Farren White,Ants and their Ways, pp. 177-9.

56.The American Naturalist, vol. 35, No. 419.

57.The American Naturalist, July, 1901.

58.Lubbock,Ants, Bees, and Wasps, pp. 78, 79.

59.Janet,Etudes sur les Fourmis.

60.Belt,The Naturalist in Nicaragua, pp. 72, 73, 79-81.

61.Journal of the Trinidad Field Club, No. 3.

62.As quoted inThe American Naturalistfor November, 1900.

63.The American Naturalist, November, 1900.

64.Belt,The Naturalist in Nicaragua, pp. 27, 28.

65.Lubbock,Ants, Bees, and Wasps.

66.The greatest being speedy extinction.

67.Darwin,The Descent of Man, p. 54.

68.The Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, March, 1900.

69.Leland O. Howard,The Insect Book.

70.The Malay Archipelago.

71.Darwin,The Descent of Man, p. 300.

72.The Malay Archipelago.

73.Souvenirs Entomologiques.

74.Romanes,Animal Intelligence, pp. 106-107.

75.The American Naturalist, February, 1902.

76.The Cambridge Natural History, vol. 6.

77.Du Chaillu,Adventures in Equatorial Africa, pp. 312, 313.

78.J. G. Wood,Homes Without Hands, p. 452.

79.W. F. Kirby,Marvels of Ant life, p. 73.

80.Dr. Beccari’s account, quoted in thePopular Science Review, 1875.

81.Belt,The Naturalist in Nicaragua, pp. 219, 220.

82.The ideal of what a short-billed tumbler pigeon’s head should be.

83.McCook,The Honey-Ant of the Garden of the Gods.

84.The American Naturalist, February, 1902.

85.Belt,The Naturalist in Nicaragua, pp. 28, 29.

86.Fabre,Insect Life, pp. 275-283.

87.Peckham,The Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps.

88.Bingley,Animal Biography.

89.The real purple of the ancients was a rich red—crimson or vermilion.

90.Romanes,Animal Intelligence, pp. 361, 362.

91.Bates,The Naturalist on the River Amazon(second edition, 1864), p. 420.

92.Belt,The Naturalist in Nicaragua, pp. 19, 20.

93.Proc. Zool. Society for 1891, pp. 462, 463.

94.Proc. Zool. Society for 1900, pp. 837-69.

95.Fabre,Insect Life, p. 165.

96.Proc. Zool. Society for 1900, pp. 837-69.

97.There are two British species of Elephant Hawk-Moth, the large and small. The caterpillar of the former has four false eyes, that of the latter only two.

98.Poulton,The Colour of Animals, pp. 258-61.

99.Leland O. Howard,The Insect Book.

100.Proc. Zool. Society for 1900, pp. 837-69.

101.Leland O. Howard,The Insect Book.

102.Nature, June 25th, 1903.

103.Poulton,The Colour of Animals, pp. 258-61.

104.Wallace,The Malay Archipelago, pp. 100-2.

105.Forbes,A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago.

106.Trimen,Protective Resemblance and Mimicry in Animals.

107.“Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley,” inTransactions of the Linnean Society, vol. 23, p. 495.

108.Belt,The Naturalist in Nicaragua, p. 109.

109.Ibid., pp. 316, 317.

110.Ibid., p. 109.

111.“Impostors among Animals,” in theCentury Magazine, July, 1901.

112.Bates,The Naturalist on the River Amazon.

113.Ibid.(1864), p. 63.

114.Wallace,The Malay Archipelago, p. 29.

115.Ibid., pp. 257, 258.

116.Ibid., pp. 328, 329.

117.Bates,The Naturalist on the River Amazon(1864), p. 333.

118.In 1813 Dr. Wells, first amongst the moderns, conceived, or at least formulated in writing, the idea of natural selection; but Aristotle, as is usual in such cases, had anticipated him as well as Darwin, Wallace, and one or two others, and that in a very unmistakable sentence (see footnote on first page of the “Historical Sketch” inThe Origin of Species). It would seem, however, that no one of these conceptions was influenced by any previous one. Of sexual selection Darwin seems to have been the discoverer as well as, in the opinion of many, the demonstrator.

119.Belt,The Naturalist in Nicaragua, pp. 108-12.

120.Swallows have the highest temperature known amongst birds, viz. 111¼.

121.C. Collingwood,Rambles of a Naturalist in the China Seas, p. 183.

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