The Life of the Scorpion

by Jean-Henri Fabre

I place her under a wire-gauze cover standing on the table. She grips the trellis-work and remains there all day long without moving. The wings, outspread to their full width, give not a quiver. Next morning there is no change: the victim of the operation is still hanging to the wires by the hooks of her front tarsi. I remove her and lay her on the table, with her belly uppermost. The big body shakes with rapid tremors. Is this the end?

Not at all. The apparently dying Moth revives, flaps her wings and with a sudden effort, recovers her feet. She climbs up the trellis and again hangs from it. In the afternoon, I lay her on her back for the second time. The wings are actuated by a gentle movement, almost a shudder, as a result of which the prostrate insect glides over the table. It climbs up the trellis again and all movement ceases.

Let us leave the poor Moth in peace: when she is really no more, she will drop off. [[77]]Well, the fall does not take place until the fourth day after the sting or stings. Life is exhausted. The deceased is a female. The force of maternity, stronger than any mortal terror, postpones death’s hour: the Moth laid her eggs before she died.

Should we entertain the very natural thought of attributing this long resistance to the colossus’ powerful constitution, the frail product of our Silkworm nurseries, the Mulberry Bombyx, would tell us that we must seek the cause elsewhere. He, the infirm dwarf who has just the strength to beat his wings and flutter round his female, offers no less resistance to the sting than the Great Peacock. The reason for this passivity is probably as follows:

The Great Peacock and the Mulberry-moth are incomplete entities, very different from the Hawk-moth, that ardent explorer of corollas in the gloaming, and the Swallowtail Butterfly and the Mulberry-moth, those untiring pilgrims to the chapel of flowers. They have no mouth implements; they take no nourishment. Deprived of the stimulus of food, they live but a few days, long enough [[78]]to lay fertile eggs. This diminished vitality must go with a no less delicate and consequently less fragile organism.

Let us descend a few steps in the series of the segmented animals and question the uncouth Millipede. The Scorpion knows him. The colony in the enclosure has shown me the Scorpion feeding on the Cryptops and the Lithobius, the result of his hunting. These to him are harmless mouthfuls, incapable of defence. I propose to-day to place him in touch with the Great Centipede known as the Scolopendra (Smorsitans), the mightiest of our Myriapods.

The dragon with the twenty-two pairs of legs is no stranger to him. I have sometimes found the two together under the same stone. The Scorpion was at home; the other roaming about at night, had taken temporary shelter there. No regrettable incident had ensued from their cohabitation. Is this always so? We shall see.

I confront the two horrors with each other in a large glass jar containing sand. The Centipede goes round and round, hugging the wall of the arena. He is an undulating ribbon, a finger’s breadth wide, four or five [[79]]inches long and ringed with greenish rings on an amber-coloured ground. The long, vibrating antennæ sound the space before him; their tips, sensitive as a finger, encounter the motionless Scorpion. The startled animal instantly turns tail. His circuit brings him back to the foe. There is a fresh contact, followed by a fresh flight.

But the Scorpion is now on his guard, with his arched tail advanced and his pincers open. When the Centipede returns to the dangerous point of his circular track, he is seized with the claws, in the neighbourhood of the head. In vain does the long, flexible animal twine and twist; imperturbably, the Scorpion grips it more firmly than ever with his pincers; and no jerks, windings or unwindings succeed in making him let go.

Meanwhile the sting is at work. Three and four times over it is driven into the sides of the Myriapod, who, for his part, opens wide his poison-fangs and strives to bite, without succeeding in doing so, for the front part of his body is held in the stubborn pincers. The hinder part alone struggles and wriggles, coils and uncoils. These efforts are useless. Kept at a distance by the long [[80]]tongs, the Scolopendra’s poisoned fangs are unable to act. I have seen many insect battles; I know none more horrible than that between these two monstrosities. It is enough to make your flesh creep.