Scorpion Suicide?

Abstract

MR. F. GILLMAN'S note (vol. xx. p. 629) in favour of scorpion suicide carries with it its own refutation, as will be seen by examining the details of his cruel experiment. Given the “circle of glowing charcoal embers a foot or so in diameter,” and the inference is that the central temperature of that circle would be well nigh “glowing” too; dropped into this fire-bound ring, the poor scorpion would at once be scorched nigh unto death, and to escape the ensuing agony, why does it not, then and there, commit suicide? No, “after vain attempts to get away,” in each of which it is more and more scorched, if not absolutely burned in its head, its vital powers fail, and its last instinctive throe is to gather its limbs together as much as possible, away from the heat. The heat has killed it, and I defy Mr. Gillman, or any one else to prove that, in this experiment, the scorpion “pierces its head with its sting and dies” in consequence.