THE TRIANGLE SPIDER. 



643 



universally, the case among spiders, the female is the head of the 

 family. In fact, so scarce are the males that for three years I never 

 found one among more than a hundred specimens. This, however, is 

 not absolute proof of their much smaller number, for they are less in 

 size and darker in color, and, like the males of the " silk-spider of 



Fig. 2. At the left a female Hyptiotes, enlarged about eight diameters. The legs are marked 

 1, 2, 3, 4, in order from before backward. In the central figure is shown the front part of 

 the spider (the cephalo-thorax), still more enlarged, so as to display the eight eyes arranged so 

 as to form two crescents with their convexities opposed thus X- At the right is a greatly- 

 magnified feathered bristle from the upper surface of the cephalo-thorax. 



South Carolina " (Nephila plumipes), they make no nets, but seem to 

 get a precarious living by hanging on to that of some female. Their 

 masculine nature is seen in the structure of the "palp" or feeler, 

 which, instead of tapering to a blunt point, as in the female, is greatly 

 enlarged, its last segment presenting the remarkably complex struct- 

 ure seen in Fig. 3. 1 



Fig. 3. Terminal joints of the palp or feeler of the male Eyptiotes Americanw, much enlarged. 

 (Drawn from Nature, by Prof. W. S. Barnard.) 



1 These modified palpi are undoubtedly connected with the reproductive function 

 Others besides myself have seen them (with other and larger species) applied to the 

 vulva of the female during an evident copulation ; but all do not assent to the generally- 

 received opinion, that they are merely intromittent organs, which have first received the 

 spermatic fluid from the testicular orifice upon the ventral surface of the abdomen. (For 

 a note upon the subject, by Mr. Gedge, with references, see Journal of Anatomy and 

 Physiology, 1867, vol. i., p. 3*71.) 



