342 KANSAS UNIVERSITY SCIENCE BULLETIN. 



relative position, but no further transfer of a spermatophore 

 occurred. 



Right after the first separation of the couple the female be- 

 gan to chew at a part of the sperm vesicle, and only desisted 

 when disturbed by the movements of the male. She was also 

 perfectly quiet as soon as her abdomen was touched as in the 

 position of copulation. One observation is not enough to estab- 

 lish the purpose of an act; yet, judging from the behavior of 

 the individuals of this pair, especially from the anxiety of the 

 male to touch the female with his abdomen, one could easily 

 conclude that the long lying in the position of copulation was 

 to prevent the female from chewing at the spermatophore too 

 soon and thus preventing the proper injection of the sperm. 

 After the pair had remained in the above-described position 

 for ten minutes or more the female left the male and mani- 

 fested no further desire to chew the spermatophore. She 

 carried it for about a half an hour and then dropped it. 



As the vesicle was being transferred, or just after it had 

 been put in place, there was an outflow of some transparent 

 fluid on either side of the vesicle. This soon hardened. It 

 is this part of the apparatus that the female was chewing. The 

 spermatophore was found to consist of an oval ampulla which 

 contained the sperm in the cavity at the center. At one end 

 of the ampulla there is a projection by which the apparatus is 

 held in the vagina, and through which the sperm are carried 

 into the spermatheca. On either side of this projection is an 

 irregularly shaped mass formed by the above-mentioned out- 

 flowing fluid during the transfer. The two sides are unlike, as 

 part of one side was pulled and eaten away by the female, and 

 the other side was pressed out of shape by some falling sand 

 before it had time to harden. Having but this one imperfect 

 specimen of the spermatophore of these crickets I cannot give 

 as accurate a description of its detail as I should like. Suffice 

 it to say that it has the essential parts — a hollow ampulla to 

 contain the sperm and a projecting part to fasten it to the fe- 

 male and to carry in the sperm. The structure of the latter is 

 obscured by the irregular mass. 



The outflow of this fluid recalls an observation which I made 

 repeatedly in the Chicago greenhouses. In the copulation of 

 a locustid the same phenomenon occurs, but in a more marked 

 way. The species, an exotic one introduced from Japan, is 



