As is the case with most poisonous animals, their ferocity has been much exaggerated; they never sting unless molested, and their chief anxiety is to slink off unobserved. The fables that they kill their young, and that when hard pressed they commit suicide by stinging themselves to death, perhaps hardly deserve serious consideration. The latter accusation is disproved by the fact that a scorpion’s poison has no effect upon itself, or even upon a closely allied species. Some writers think that in the frantic waving of the “tail,” which is generally induced by strong excitement, a scorpion may sometimes inadvertently wound itself with the sharp point of its telson. Fabre gives a fascinating account of the habits of _Buthus occitanus_, which occurs in the south of France. He found these scorpions plentifully in arid, stony spots exposed to the sun. They were always solitary, and if two were found under the same stone, one was engaged in eating the other. Their sight is so poor that they do not recognise each other without absolute contact. Fabre established colonies in his garden and study, providing them with suitable soil and sheltering stones. They dug holes by reducing the earth to powder by means of the three anterior pairs of legs—never using their pedipalpi in the operation—and sweeping away the débris with the tail. From October to March they ate nothing, rejecting all food offered to them, though always awake and ready to resent disturbance. In April appetite seemed to awaken, though a very trifling amount of food seemed to suffice. At that time, too, they began to wander, and apparently without any intention of returning, and they continued daily to escape from the garden enclosure until the most stringent measures were taken to keep them in. Not till they were surrounded by glass and the framework of their cages covered with varnished paper were their attempts to climb out of their prison frustrated. Fabre came to the conclusion that they took at least five years to attain their full size. [Illustration: FIG. 168.—The “_promenade à deux_” of _Buthus occitanus_. (After Fabre.) ] His most interesting observations were concerned with their mating habits, in connection with which he noted some extraordinary phenomena. After some very curious antics, in which the animals stood face to face (Fig. 167) with raised tails, which they intertwined—evidently with no hostile intention—they always indulged in what Fabre calls a “promenade à deux,” hand in hand, so to speak, the male seizing the chelae of the female with its own, and walking backwards, while the female followed, usually without any reluctance. This promenade occupied an hour or more, during which the animals turned several times. At length, if in the neighbourhood of a suitable stone, the male would dig a hole, without for a moment entirely quitting its hold of the female, and presently both would disappear into the newly-formed retreat.