■ AT THE MICROSCOPE. 39 



do not present to the eye such a striking appearance as do those 

 of Epeira diadema, figured in Science Gossips Vol. 187 1, p. 86. 

 The structure of the claws, spinnerets, and scopulse (brush-like 

 appendages to the feet, whereby they are enabled to run rapidly 

 over smooth bodies in quest of the flies on which they feed) may 

 well engage our attention. 



The nature of the hairs clothing their limbs, tactile and seg- 

 mental, and also the scales (so peculiar and interesting in their 

 structure), with which the thorax especially is covered in life, is 

 well worthy attention. 



I would commend to our members the study of the palpal 

 organs. If they can be examined unrolled, they solve to my mind 

 the difficulties which had presented themselves as very serious to 

 the reception of the belief that the palpi of male spiders really 

 were the sexual organs, viz — their apparently small size ; where is 

 the prostate gland to be lodged ? where the vesicute seminales ? 

 where the testes ? After seeing what I have recently, this diffi- 

 culty, presented by their wonderfully close packing together in the 

 hollow of the last digital joint, was removed. There is evidently 

 abundant room. The enquiry, however, into the exact anatomical 

 conditions is a difficult one. The parts are so minute, require 

 time in dissection which I have not to give to it, and higher 

 powers than I possess (1,200 to 1,800 or 2,000 diameters), whilst I 

 cannot go satisfactorily beyond 500. 



In a paper published in the Alonthly Microscopical Journal^ 

 Alfred Saunders described and figured the spermatozoa of certain 

 of the Crustacea and AracJinida. 



John Blackwood's communication to the 14th meeting of the 

 British Association for the advancement of science, held at York, 

 in Sept., 1844, was published in the volume for 1845. In this, at 

 pp. 67 — 69, are detailed experiments which set the question at 

 rest for ever, and prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, from 

 direct experiments repeated with the utmost caution, that impreg- 

 nation takes place solely by contact of the palpi with the female geni- 

 tal organs. I have myself repeatedly seen sufficient to satisfy me 

 of the accuracy of this, so thoroughly, that I do not even care to 

 repeat, unless I could extend them. 



My dear lamented friend, Richard Beck, had also satisfied 

 himself, from close observations, many times repeated, that it was 

 as above stated. Another valued and much-mourned friend, J. 

 W. Salter, a patient, accurate, acute observer, had also, I found in 

 conversation, come into possession of facts to the same purport, 

 from direct observation. They rest from their labours, and can 

 speak but through me. Popular authors have little time for 

 direct observation ; they are, and must be, for the most part, 

 ''^book-makers'^ They receive their metal from others, stamp it 



