The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1893-12-16 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

SCORPION.  The eight legs with which the creature walks, or rather scuffles along, for his gait is ungraceful, come behind the nippers. These last are used for I 1 catching and holding the prey alone. In the evening, when all is quiet, then sally forth these I sons of Bohai, blown with insolence and bane. They creep slowly and noiselessly from behind, like eight-legged garrotters, upon the grubs, moths, and flies which constitute their prey ; and ! as they do so, they cock up their flexible tail over the back of their body, very much after the faehion rendered familiar to us by the attitude of that common English beeVe, the devil's coach-horse. ,By this nianceuvre, the scorpion manages! to get his sting nearly as far forward ! as the back of his head, and to bring it into position for killing his expected booty. When the prey is fairly reached, he seizes it by the aid of , his great claws, holds it fast iu his grip, and . quickly stings it to death by an injection of poison_ ! The sting itself is an interesting, object for examination, but only when severed from the animal which originally possessed it. In situ, and during: life, it had best be carefully avoided. It consists of a round swollen joint, containing two glands, both of which alike secrete the poisonous liquid. It ends in a sharp-pointed hook, sufficiently keen to pierce the skin even of considerable animals like ' sheep and antelopes. Sharp as it is, however, the end is doubly perforated, a sepsrate duct conveying the poison from each of the glands to the point as if on purpose, so that if one failed, the other might succeed in killing its quarry. So beautifully does nature provide—but there ! I forget; perhaps I am looking at the matter a little too exclusively from the point of view of the scorpion. In their domestic life, I regret to say, our present subjecte do not set a good example for the imitatiou of humanity. We may "go to the act" for advice, but not so to the scorpion. Birds in their little nests agree ; scorpions differ. Nay, more, if you put two of them together under a single stone, they set to work at once to fight out their differences, and the victor usually proceeds to kill and eat his vanquished opponent. Indeed, they are extraordinarily solitary animals. During many years of scorpion-hunting, I never remember to have seen two individuals living together in amity; and even their more tender relations are tainted at times with the unamiable habit of cannibalism. The males are decidedly smaller than their mates, whom they approach accordingly with the utmost caution. If lihe fair inamDrata doesn't like the looks of her advancing suitor, Rho settles the question offhand by making a murderous spring at him, catching him in her claws, stinging him to death, and making hearty meal off him. This is scarcely tovertike. poll the other hand, if a dubious wife the female scorpion is a devoted mother. She hates her eggs in her own oviduct, brings forth her young alive (unlike her relations the spiders), and carries them about on her back, to the number of fifty, during their innocent childhood, till they are of an age to shift for themselves in the struggle for existence, —Cornhill Magazine.