The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-06-13

they disturbed IL.
Opinions differ as TO whether the bite
of tarantula is ever fatal. Any col
ored person in Nassau will tell you that
his bite is sure death. have taken
some pains to make inquiries for any
person who has ever known, of his own
knowledge, of fatal result from the
bite of a tarantula. 1t is impossible to
find any authenticated case.
The scorpion is the next gentleman
to demand attention. He is very much
smaller than the tarantula, much
livelier, and not much handsomer.
There are a thousand scorpions, l sup
pose, to one tarantula, and their bite is
fully as bad. | must confess to having
had very vague idea about the scOr-
pion before becoming acquainted with
the tropics. 1 think if l had been
driven to it, | should have described
him as a creature with wings, black,
and somewhere about the size of hum
ming-bird. This would have been about
as inaccurate a description as can be i'm
agined. He has no wings, he is not
black, and he is nowhere near the size
of even a half-grown humming- bird.
There is an imaginary picture of him in
all the almanacs, but it doesn' look very
much like him-that sign of the zodiac.
Referring to Mr.. Webster to see how
my experience compares with an au-
thoritative description of him. find
that he is ga pedipalpous, pulmonary
arachnidan, of the genus scorpio,"
| and | am glad to learn, of course, that
he is pedipalpous. Anybody would
| be pedipalpOus who would take hold
of one of them, if he could help it. But
nobody ever does. We hear of snake
charmers, and lion-tamers, and tanners
of wild beasts in general; but did any
| body ever hear of man fooling unnec-
essarily with scorpions. A full-grown
scorpion is from two to two-and-a-half
| inches long, and his color is a sort of
ashy gray. He has eight legs,
upon all OF which minute hairs
grow, and his tail is much longer
than there is any necessity for, consid-
ering the size of his body. The tail is,
| in fact, only a continuation of his body,
and [ have included that in measuring
| his length. 1t is at the end of his tail
that he carries his venOmOus sting, and
when he curls up his body intb semi
circle, and brings that lively end of his
tail to bear upon an enemy, the enemy
can not drop him too soon. His body is
no where as thick as lead-pencil, but
at the head it branches out into claws,
or horns, or additional legs, whichever
you like to call them; so that in shape
he is somewhat like a tack hammer
He is shaped very much like a hammer
| headed shark, only hammer-headed
sharks are not familiar enough in
Northern waters to serve for an illustra-
! ton. He is creature of mold and
slime, like the snail. Let an old box lie
on the ground, particularly in a moist
| place, till the bottom boards begin to
decay, and your scorpion trap is ready.
When you want your game lift up the
box and there is your scorpion. But be
careful to take hold of the box near the
| top, and not get your fingers in the way.
for the scorpion is very rapid in his mo-
tons and he will give you a sting before
you know it. When he strikes you with
the end of his tail, like a wasp, he ex-
udes a venomous liquid, and u man
might better hold a red-hot iron in his
hand than get the tenth part of a drop
of this liquid into his blood. 1t is not
necessarily fatal, particularly in the
Bahamas; but it condenses the heat of
forty furnaces. In some parts of South
America scorpion bites are frequently
fatal, but / have not heard of any one
having being killed by them in Nassau.
This is easily accounted for. The scor-
pion likes to feed upon decaying wood.
The centipede is much larger than the
scorpion, and | think even more to be
dreaded. He grows sometimes to be
six or eight inches long, but is slim and
rather fiat. He, too, travels rather
fast Che ought to, he has legs enough),
and he scratches rather than bites,
leaving an ugly mark wherever he sets
in one of his numberless claws. Like
the scorpion, he lives under boards or
stones or at the bottom of old walls.
He is made up all in joints, like the
tapeworm, and each joint has either
two or four legs. / never examined
one closely enough to see exactly
which, for even after they are all cut
into bits the pieces have an unpleasant
habit of wiggling themselves about.
They say about them here that cent?
pede will not die before dark, no mat
ter how much you cut him up; but /
think that story will do to 60 with the
yarn about snakes having the same bad
habit. l have cut up few dozens OF
them with hoes, here in Nassau, that
am sure died before | was through with
them. When | say in Nassau | mean
here at Waterloo, which is mile and
a half out of town. These insects are
rarely seen in the city, and American
visitors often complain that they have
to 90 home without sight of any of
them. The centipede's poison lies in
his claws. There is bent and very
sharp claw at the end of each leg which
sticks into the flesh, and if he gets one
of these claws into you he quickly pulls
himself up upon your hand, or whatever
part of you he has hold of, and sets
in the rest. have talked with peo-
pie who have been poisoned by cent?
pedes, and they describe the sensation as
anything but pleasant. He has not, of
course. hundred legs, but ne has
great many, and makes them all count.
One gentleman in Nassau described to
me a thrilling encounter he had with a
l.. 4 L. 4