Note 1 — Chapter I · THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: THE DWELLING

I made the acquaintance of the Languedocian Scorpion (Scorpio occitanus, LAT) half a century ago, in the Villeneuve hills, on the far side of the Rhone, opposite Avignon. When the thrice-blessed Thursday1 came, from morning till night I used to turn over the stones in quest of the Scolopendra,2 the chief subject of the thesis which I was preparing for my doctor’s degree. Sometimes, instead of that magnificent horror, the mighty Myriapod, I would find, under the raised stone, another and no less unpleasant recluse. It was he. With his tail turned over his back and a drop of poison gleaming at the end of the sting, he lay displaying his pincers at the entrance to a burrow. Br-r-r-r! Have done with the formidable creature! The stone fell back into its place.