THE LIFE OF THE SCORPION BY J. HENRI FABRE TRANSLATED BY Alexander Teixeira de Mattos FELLOW OF ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON AND Bernard Miall NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1923 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: THE DWELLING 3 II THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: FOOD 30 III THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: THE POISON 53 IV THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: THE IMMUNITY OF THE LARVÆ 83 V THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: PRELUDES TO THE WEDDING 111 VI THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: THE PAIRING 134 VII THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: THE FAMILY 153 VIII THE PENTATOMÆ AND THEIR EGGS 183 IX THE MASKED BUG 216 X THE TEREBINTH LOUSE: THE GALLS 242 XI THE TEREBINTH LOUSE: THE MIGRATION 271 XII THE DORTHESIA 290 XIII THE KERMES OF THE OAK 311 THE LIFE OF THE SCORPION CHAPTER I THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: THE DWELLING The Scorpion is an uncommunicative creature, secret in his practices and disagreeable to deal with, so that his history, apart from anatomical detail, amounts to little or nothing. The scalpel of the experts has made us acquainted with his organic structure; but no observer, as far as I know, has thought of interviewing him, with any sort of persistence, on the subject of his private habits. Ripped up, after being steeped in spirits of wine, he is very well-known; acting within the domain of his instincts, he is hardly known at all. And yet none of the segmented animals is more deserving of a detailed biography. He has at all times appealed to the popular imagination, even to the point of figuring among the signs of the zodiac. Fear made the gods, said Lucretius. Deified by terror, the Scorpion is immortalized in the sky by a constellation and in the almanac by the symbol for the month of October.