THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: FOOD

The Life of the Scorpion by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: FOOD

CHAPTER II. THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: FOOD

I begin by learning that, despite his terrible weapon, a likely token of brigandage and gluttony, the Languedocian Scorpion is an extremely frugal eater. When I visit him at home, among the pebbles of the adjacent hills, I carefully ransack his haunts in the hope of coming upon the remains of an ogre’s feast, and I come upon nothing more than the crumbs of a hermit’s collation: in fact, as a rule, I find nothing at all. A few green wing-cases belonging to some Tree bug; wings of the adult Ant-lion; dismembered segments of a puny Locust: these make up my list.

The hamlet in the paddock, assiduously consulted, tells me more. After the fashion of a valetudinarian who lives on a diet and eats at stated hours, the Scorpion has his feeding-season. For six or seven months, from October till April, he does not leave his dwelling, though always fit and ready to wield his tail. During this period, if I put any sort of food within his reach, he sweeps it out of the burrow with the back of his tail and pays it no further attention.

It is at the end of March that the first cravings of the stomach are aroused. At this season, on inspecting the cabins, I sometimes find one or other of my specimens quietly gnawing at a capture, a meagre Myriapod, such as a Cryptops or Lithobius. For that matter, the frequency of the item is far from making up for its smallness; and it is long before the consumer of the scanty morsel finds himself in possession of a second.

I expected something better:

“A brute like that,” I said to myself, “so well armed for battle, cannot be content with trifles. We do not load our pea-shooters with a charge of dynamite to bring down a Sparrow: that awful sting was never meant to stab a humble little animal. The Scorpion’s food must be some powerful quarry.”

I was wrong. Terribly equipped for fighting though he be, the Scorpion is an indifferent hunter.[32]

He is a poltroon into the bargain. A little Mantis, come into being that same day and encountered on the road, fills him with dismay. A Cabbage Butterfly1 puts him to flight merely by beating the ground with her clipped wings: the harmless cripple overawes his cowardice. It needs the stimulus of hunger to persuade him to attack.

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,2 with a belly as plump and luscious as a pat of butter. I [33]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,3 Iuli, all the rabble of the rocks beloved of the Scorpion; I make a trial with Asidæ4 and Opatra which, assiduous lurkers under the stones in the actual places frequented by the [34]hunters, might well be the customary game; I offer Clythra-beetles,5 gathered on the brushwood beside the burrows, and Cicindelæ6 captured on the sand in my guests’ very domain: nothing, absolutely nothing is accepted, apparently because of the ungrateful exterior.

Where shall I find that modest mouthful, at once tender and savoury? Chance provides me with it. In May I am visited by a Beetle with soft wing-cases, Omophlus lepturoides, a finger’s-breadth long. He arrived suddenly in the enclosure in swarms. Around an ilex all yellow with catkins there is a whirling cloud of Beetles, flying, settling, sipping sweets and frantically attending to their love-affairs. This life of revelry lasts a fortnight: then they all disappear in caravans going one knows not whither. On behalf of my boarders, we will levy on these nomads, who look to me as though they would be suitable. I was right in my assumption. After a long, a very long wait, I see the Scorpion make a meal. Here he [35]comes, stealthily advancing towards the insect motionless on the ground. He does not hunt his quarry: he gathers it in. There is neither hurry nor contest, no movement of the tail, no use of the poisoned weapon. The Scorpion placidly grabs the morsel with his two-fingered hands; the pincers bend back, carry it to the mouth and then both hold it until it is all consumed. The insect that is being eaten, full of life, struggles between the mandibles, to the resentment of the eater, who likes to nibble quietly.

Then the dart bends down before the mouth; very gently it pricks the insect once or twice and paralyses it. The mastication is resumed and the sting continues to tap, as though the consumer were swallowing the morsel a forkful at a time.

At last the insect, patiently chewed and chewed again for hours on end, has become a dry pellet which the stomach would refuse; but this residue has entered the gullet so far that the sated Scorpion cannot always reject it directly. The intervention of the pincers is required to extricate it. One of them seizes the pill with the finger-tips, daintily extracts it from the throat and drops it to [36]the ground. The meal is finished: it will not be repeated for a long time to come.

A great improvement on the wire-gauze covers, the large glazed cage, full of animation in the evening twilight, provides me with abundant information touching this strange frugality. In April and May, essentially the season of festive assemblies and banquets, I provision the place lavishly with game. At this time my lilac-walk abounds with Cabbage Butterflies and Swallowtails. Caught in the net, their wings partly amputated, a dozen of these Butterflies are let loose in the establishment, whence their maimed condition will prevent them from escaping.

In the evening, at about eight o’clock, the wild beasts leave their lairs. They stop for a moment on the threshold of their potsherds to enquire into the state of things; then, gathering from more or less all directions, they begin to stroll to and fro, with their tails now uplifted now trailing behind them with the tip always curling upwards. The mood of the moment and the objects encountered determine the posture. The discreet [37]light of a lantern hung outside the panes allows me to watch events.

The mutilated Butterflies whirl in short flights over the ground. Through this desperately fluttering mob the Scorpions pass to and fro, knocking them over and trampling on them, without taking further notice of them. Sometimes, in the hazards of this scrimmage, one of the cripples settles on the ogre’s back. He does not mind these familiarities, makes no protest and carries his unaccustomed rider up and down. Some of the heedless creatures fling themselves under the strollers’ pincers; others actually touch the horrible mouth. It makes no difference: the Scorpions disdain their food.

A similar experiment is repeated nightly, so long as Pieres abound on the lilac-bushes. My catering leads to very little. From time to time, however, I witness a capture. A Butterfly fluttering on the ground is grabbed by one of the promenaders. The Scorpion quickly snaps her up without a pause and goes his way, with his pincers still groping and held before him like a pair of distraught arms. This time, the hands do not keep the [38]morsel within reach of the mouth, being otherwise occupied in reconnoitring the path followed: it is the mandibles only that carry the booty. The Butterfly, eaten alive, desperately flaps what is left of her wings. She produces the impression of a white plume waving on the crest of the savage victor. If the captive’s struggles become excessively inconvenient, the spoiler, still walking along and munching, quiets her with little pats of his sting. At last he flings the prize away. What has he eaten? Just the head, no more.

Less often, others hasten to convey the booty to their lairs beneath the potsherds. Here the meal will be taken far from the madding crowd. Others, after securing their capture, withdraw to a corner of the enclosure and refresh themselves in the open, with their belly on the sand.

A week later, after a certain number of these incidents, I inspect the place and examine the caves one by one, to ascertain the amount of provisions consumed. The wings, those uneatable leavings, will enlighten me in this respect. Well, save for rare exceptions, there are no wings detached [39]from the corpses. Nearly all the Butterflies are intact; they have dried up without being eaten. A few of them, three or four, have been decapitated. The results of my conscientious investigations are limited to this. During a week, in the full swing of activity, a tiny mouthful has been enough for these head-eaters. There are twenty-five of them in my establishment, twenty-five sated with a crumb.

To them the Butterfly must be an almost unknown fare. It is doubtful whether, down in their rocky labyrinths, they ever capture such game, which loves tall blossoms and sinuous flights. Unfamiliar with this quarry, they may disdain it, merely taking a bite in the absence of food more to their taste. Now what can they find in their wild, sun-parched territory?

Locusts apparently. Crickets, a horde that is never lacking wherever there is a blade of grass to nibble. It is on these that I rely by preference when the season of the Pieres and other ordinary Butterflies closes. The paddock then abounds in Crickets and Locusts, a very youthful generation, clad only in a short jacket. These are surely the [40]proper diet for my Scorpions, with their love of tender mouthfuls. Some are green, others grey; some fat, others thin; some are mounted on stilts, others are squat and short-shanked. The consumers can make their choice amid this varied assortment.

At nightfall, in the area faintly lighted by the lantern, I distribute my crop of Locusts, who are fairly quiet at this late hour. The Scorpions lose no time in making their appearance. The living manna is wriggling all about them. At the least tap, the nearest strollers decamp; they find things too exciting. It is an exact repetition of the experiments with the Butterflies: none sets any store by the tit-bits, most certainly seen and even touched, for the Scorpions often encounter them and walk on them.

I see a Locust who, as luck will have it, has got caught in the fingers of a passing Scorpion; and the latter is too good-natured even to close his pincers. Ever so gentle a squeeze would put him in possession of an excellent head of game; and heedlessly he allows it to slip away. I see a little Green Locust hoisted by accident on the back of a promenader, a terrible mount that carries [41]her quietly, without dreaming of harming her. A hundred times I witness face-to-face meetings, defensive retreats, swishes of the tail that sweep aside the heedless creature encountered on the highway, but never any serious hand-to-hand fighting, still less pursuit. It is only at rare intervals that my daily observations show me one or other of my frugal eaters in possession of a Locust.

At pairing-time, in April and May, a sudden change of behaviour turns the sober Scorpion into a glutton and makes her indulge in scandalous orgies. At this season I often come upon a Scorpion in the enclosure, under her tile, devouring one of her own kind in perfect quietude, as she might devour an ordinary head of game. Everything goes down, except, as a rule, the tail, which remains hanging for whole days from the sated creature’s jaws and is finally rejected as though with regret. It may be presumed that the poison-phial at the end of the joint has something to do with this refusal. Perhaps the toxic fluid has a flavour which is unpleasant to the consumer’s taste.

Apart from this remnant, the devoured Scorpion disappears entirely into a belly [42]whose capacity seems inferior in bulk to the things swallowed. It takes a very obliging stomach to find room for such a dish. Before being chewed and packed away, the contents must be larger than the container. Now these Gargantuan banquets are not normal reflections but matrimonial rites, to which we shall have occasion to return. They take place only in the mating-season: and the animals devoured are always males.

I shall not therefore enter these Scorpions who die victims of their embraces on the list of normal victuals. What we see here is the aberrations of an animal at rutting-time, wedding-orgies worthy of figuring beside the tragic nuptials of the Praying Mantis.7 Nor shall I enter the feasts provoked by my artifices, when I confront the Scorpion with a powerful adversary and worry the two combatants in my eagerness to see the duel. Thus exasperated, the Scorpion defends himself and stabs; then, in the intoxication of his victory, he eats the fallen foe, in so far as his swallowing-faculties permit. This is his manner of celebrating his triumph. [43]Never, but for my intervention, would he have dared to attack such an enemy; never would he have bitten into such a bulky prey.

Apart from these banquets, which are too exceptional to be taken into account, I note none but frugal collations. My vigilance is perhaps at fault; it might well be that the consumption is greater at late hours of the night, in the absence of witnesses; and therefore, before granting the Scorpion a certificate for extreme moderation in diet, I appeal to the following experiment, which will give us a definite reply.

Early in autumn, four medium-sized specimens are installed separately, each in a saucer furnished with a layer of fine sand and a potsherd. A pane of glass closes the receptacle, prevents the escape of the skilful climbers and allows the sun to enliven the dwelling. Without keeping out the air, the lid is enough to prevent any small game, such as Clothes-moths or Mosquitoes, from entering the enclosed space. The four saucers are deposited in a conservatory where a tropical temperature holds sway for the greater part of the day. No provisions are served by me, nor will the least mouthful [44]ever arrive from the outside, unless it be some vagrom Ant. In this total absence of provisions, what will become of the interned Scorpions?

Always brisk and lively without a scrap of food, they go to earth under the potsherd. They rummage about and dig themselves a burrow closed by a barrier of sand. From time to time, especially in the evening twilight, they issue from their lair, take a short stroll and then go home again, behaving just as though they had been fed.

When the cold sets in, though it is not freezing in the green-house, the prisoners no longer leave their home, which has been dug a little deeper in anticipation of the severe weather. Their health, for that matter, continues excellent. When I inspect them, as my curiosity often prompts me to do, I find them always fit and ready to repair the burrow which I have disturbed.

Winter ends without mishap. There is nothing unusual in this: the cold season, while suspending activity, moderates or even does away with the need for refection. But the heat returns and, with it, the need of food, which calls for provisions. Now [45]what do the fasters do while their kinsmen in the glass cage are restoring their strength with Butterflies and Locusts? Are they languid and anæmic? Not at all.

Quite as vigorous as those who have been feeding, they brandish their gnarled tails and reply to my teasing with threatening gestures. If I worry them too much, they run away quickly along the circumference of the saucer. Famine does not seem to have tried them. This cannot go on indefinitely. About the middle of June, three of the captives die; the fourth holds out till July. It has taken nine months of absolute abstinence to put an end to their activity.

Another test is arranged for very young specimens, about a couple of months old. They measure about an inch in length, from the forehead to the tip of the tail. Their colouring is brighter than that of the adults; the pincers in particular look as though they were carved out of amber and coral. The future horror has his attractive points in early youth.—I find them under the stones from October onwards. Invariably solitary like their elders, they dig themselves, under the chosen shelter, a little hole barricaded by [46]a sandy mound consisting of the rubbish of the excavations. When taken from their retreat, they run along nimbly, curving their tails over their backs and brandishing their fragile stings.

In October I place four of them in as many tumblers closed with a muslin veil, an insuperable obstacle to any tiny prey coming from the outside. The prisoners have for digging purposes a finger’s-breadth of fine sand and as shelter a small disk of cardboard. Well, these little fellows undergo abstinence as pluckily as the adults and are still active and restless in the months of May and June.

These two experiments prove to us that the Scorpion, while retaining his activity, is capable of dispensing with food during three fourths of the year. It must therefore take a long time to make him corpulent.

A caterpillar that lives only a few days is continually browsing to accumulate the substance of the future Butterfly; its voracious appetite makes up for the shortness of the banquet. How does the Scorpion contrive to hoard so much matter out of crumbs so few and far between? With him the accumulation [47]of tissue must be the work of exceptional longevity.

It is not very difficult to arrive at an approximate estimate of his length of life. The stones turned over at different periods give us the answer as clearly as the archives of a record-office would do. I find, in respect of size, five classes of Scorpions. The smallest measure two-thirds of an inch in length; the largest four inches. Between these two extremes, three sizes are quite distinctly discernible.

Beyond a doubt, each of these categories corresponds with a year’s difference in age, perhaps even more, for each stage seems to be a protracted one; at all events the progress in size is hardly perceptible, at the end of a year, in the specimens in my rearing-cages. The Languedocian Scorpion therefore boasts the prerogative of a green old age: he lives five years and probably longer. He has ample time, as we see, to wax fat on scraps.

To grow big is not everything: activity is essential. The scraps will be repeated, it is true, but always so sparingly and at such distant intervals that we begin to wonder [48]what part eating really plays in this instance. My prisoners, large and small, subjected to a strict fast, give especial cause for reflection. Whenever I disturb their repose—and my curiosity deprives itself of few opportunities—they move about briskly, brandishing their tails, delving the sand, sweeping it, shifting it; in short, they expend many kilogram-metres of energy, to use the technical expression; and this goes on for eight or nine months.

In performing this work what do they expend on materials? Nothing. From the first day of their imprisonment all food is cut off. The thought occurs to the mind of nutritive reserves, of adipose savings accumulated in the organism. The animal, according to this, in order to balance the expenditure of energy, would live upon itself.

With portly adults the explanation would be valid in a certain measure; but I have subjected lean specimens, of medium age, to the test; I have selected young ones, just beginning life. What can these small Scorpions have in their bellies? What do they possess that can be transformed into motor [49]energy by vital oxidation? The scalpel cannot find it and the imagination refuses to appraise it, so great is the disproportion between the amount of work accomplished and the worker’s bulk. If the whole animal were before all a combustible and were to burn to the last atom, the total sum of heat emitted would still be far from equivalent to the total sum of the mechanical effects. Our factories cannot keep an engine going, all the year round, with a lump of coal as its whole provision.

My Scorpions hardly seem to consume even this lump of fuel. After a long and rigorous abstinence, they are as fresh and brightly-coloured, as glossy with health as at the beginning of the experiment.

We can understand the Snail, sunk in a deep inertia and contracted within his shell, whose opening he has closed with a chalky lid or a parchment cover: he no longer eats, but neither does he see; he exists on his reserves by slowing down his vital processes to the lowest possible limits. The Scorpion, always moving about, despite the excessive prolongation of the fast, is beyond our comprehension.[50]

For the third time in the course of our studies, with reference to the young first of the Lycosa8, then of the Clotho Spider9, and now of the Scorpion, we are led back to the same suspicion. Is it a fact that animals of an organization very different from our own, deprived of an individual temperature determined by an active oxidation, are governed by biological laws which are immutable in the whole series of living creatures? Need movement in them be always the result of combustion for which eating would furnish the materials? Might they not derive their activity, at least in part, from the circumambient energies, heat, electricity, light and so on, varying modes of the same motive power?

These energies are the soul of the world, the unfathomable vortex which sets the material universe in motion. Would it then be paradoxical to picture the animal in certain cases as a highly perfected accumulator, capable of collecting the circumambient heat, of transmuting it in its tissues into a mechanical equivalent and of returning [51]it in the form of motion? This would suggest a possibility that the animal might perform work in the absence of energizing matter absorbed as food.

Ah, life made a superb discovery when, in prehistoric times, it invented the Scorpion! To work without eating: what an incomparable gift, had it become general! What miseries, what horrors would be abolished, if we were freed from the tyranny of the stomach! Why was this wonderful attempt not continued, why was it not perfected in creatures of a higher order? What a pity that the initial example was not followed in an ever-increasing progression! Then perhaps to-day, exempted from the ignominious hunt for food, thought, the loftiest and most delicate expression of activity, would restore itself after fatigue with a ray of sunshine.

Of this gift of yore, full of unrealized promises, certain constituents have nevertheless been disseminated throughout the animal kingdom. We ourselves live by solar radiation; we derive part of our energy from it. The Arab, supporting existence on a handful of dates, is no less active than [52]the man of the north, gorged with meat and beer; though he does not fill his stomach so plentifully, he has a bigger share in the banquet of the sun.

All things considered then, the Scorpion must derive the main part of his energizing food from the circumambient warmth. As for the plastic food indispensable to physical growth, its turn comes, a little sooner or later, announced by a moult. The stiff tunic splits along the back; the animal slips gently out of its cast clothes, which have become too tight. Then comes the imperious call for food, were it only to make good the cost of the new skin. Henceforth, if the fast continues, my prisoners, especially the smaller ones, die before long.

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