“Aristotle remembreth an herb which he calleth sissimbria, out of which putrefied Scorpions are engendered, as he writeth. And we have shewed already, in the history of the Crocodile, that out of the Crocodile’s egges do many times come Scorpions, which at their first egression do kill their dam that hatched them, which caused Archelaus, which wrote epigrams of wonders unto Ptolemæus, to sing of Scorpions in this manner: 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] Topsel further says: “The principall of all other subjects of their (the Scorpions’) hatred are virgins and women, whom they do not only desire to harm, but also when they have harmed are never perfectly recovered. (Albertus).... “The lion is by the Scorpion put to flight wheresoever he seeith it, for he feareth it as the enemy of his life, and therefore writeth S. Ambrose, _Exiguo Scorpionis aculeo exagitatur leo_, the lion is much moved at the small sting of a Scorpion.”[1092] Naude tells us that there is a species of Scorpions in Italy, which are so domesticated as to be put between sheets to cool the beds during the heat of summer.[1093] Pliny mentions that the Scorpions of Italy are harmless.[1094]