In vos dissolvit morte, et redigit crocodilum
Natura extinctum, Scorpii omnipotens.
Which may be Englished thus:
To you by Scorpions death the omnipotent
Ruines the crocodil in nature’s life extinct.”[1088]
The remarks referred to by Topsel in the last paragraph in his history of the Crocodile are as follows:
“It is said by Philes that, after the egge is laid by the crocodile, many times there is a cruel Stinging Scorpion which cometh out thereof, and woundeth the crocodile that laid it.[1089]
“The Scorpion also and the crocodile are enemies one to
the other, and therefore when the Egyptians will describe the combat of two notable enemies, they paint a crocodile and a Scorpion fighting together, for ever one of them killeth another; but if they will decipher a speedy overthrow to one’s enemy, then they picture a crocodile; if a slow and slack victory, they picture a Scorpion.”[1090]
“Some maintain,” says Moufet, “that they (Scorpions) are not bred by copulation, but by exceeding heat of the sun. Ælian, lib. 6, de Anim. cap. 22, among whom Galen must first be blamed, who in his Book de fœt. form. will not have nature, but chance to be the parent of Scorpions, Flies, Spiders, Worms of all sorts, and he ascribes their beginning to the uncertain constitutions of the heavens, place, matter, heat, etc.”[1091]