Note 1 — Chapter XVIII · THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: THE FAMILY

So here we have the young nicely wiped, clean and free. They are white. Their length, from the forehead to the tip of the tail, measures nine millimetres1 in the Languedocian Scorpion and four2 in the Black. As the liberating toilet is completed, they climb, first one and then the other, on the maternal spine, hoisting themselves, without excessive haste, along the claws, which the Scorpion keeps flat on the ground, in order to facilitate the ascent. Close-grouped one against the other, entangled at random, they form a continuous cloth on the mother’s back. With the aid of their little claws, they are pretty firmly settled. One finds some difficulty in sweeping them away with the point of a hair pencil without more or less hurting the feeble creatures. In this state, neither steed nor burden budges: it is the fit moment for experimenting.