What am I to give him, when his appetite begins to awaken in April? Like the Spiders, he requires a live prey, seasoned with blood that is not yet congealed: he requires a morsel quivering in the throes of death. He never eats a corpse. The game, moreover, must be tender and of small size. Thinking to give him a treat, in the early days of my experience as a rearer of Scorpions, I offered him Locusts, picking out the biggest. He obstinately refused them. They were too tough, and, besides, too difficult to handle, owing to their kicks, which demoralize the coward. I try the Field Cricket, [8] with a belly as plump and luscious as a pat of butter. I drop half-a-dozen into the glazed enclosure, with a leaf of lettuce which will console them for the horrors of the lions’ den. The singers seem not to heed their terrible neighbours; they sing their little songs and nibble at their salad. If a strolling Scorpion appears upon the scene, they look at him: they point their slender antennæ in his direction, without any other sign of perturbation at the approach of the passing monster. He, on his side, draws back as soon as he sees them: he is afraid of getting into trouble with these strangers. Should he touch one of them with the tip of his pincers, forthwith he flees, overcome with terror. The six Crickets spend a month with the wild beasts and none takes note of them. They are too big, too fat. My six patients are restored to freedom as safe and sound as when they entered the cage. I serve up Woodlice, Glomeres, [9] Iuli, all the rabble of the rocks beloved of the Scorpion; I make a trial with Asidæ [10] and Opatra which, assiduous lurkers under the stones in the actual places frequented by the hunters, might well be the customary game; I offer Clythra-beetles, [11] gathered on the brushwood beside the burrows, and Cicindelæ [12] captured on the sand in my guests’ very domain: nothing, absolutely nothing is accepted, apparently because of the ungrateful exterior.