Facts in the Physiology of Spiders and Insects. — Blachwall. 49 



enigma which this act had hitherto presented. The spoon-shaped 

 palpi of the males are in fact the copulative organs, with which they 

 take the semen from the appropriate openings of the seminal ducts on 

 the base of the abdomen, and transfer it to the sexual opening of the 

 female. The procedure is carefully described in various spiders." 

 Kot having had an opportunity of perusing the work of M. Menge, I 

 am unable to state the particular observations which have led to a 

 conclusion so precisely in accordance with the supposition previously 

 entertained by M. Duges. 



This view of the subject I am incompetent either to confirm or 

 refute, as in the course of extensive and minute investigations I have 

 not succeeded in observing the act above described ; and yet in 

 numerous cases it ought to be very apparent, as the shortness of the 

 palpi would render a strong inflection of the cephalothorax toward 

 the inferior surface of the abdomen absolutely requisite, before they 

 could be applied to the part indicated as the seat of the seminal ducts. 

 I shall conclude these remarks with the statement of a few facts 

 bearing upon the question, which have come to my knowledge in pur- 

 suing researches relative to the generation of spiders. 



In the act of copulation, the extremity of the organ of each palpus 

 of the male, in a state of tumefaction, is usually introduced alternately 

 into the vulva of the female, and that many times in succession, with- 

 out being once brought into contact with any part of its own abdomen, 

 though it is very frequently conveyed to the mouth ; and I have ob- 

 served a male Lycosa higiibris apply its right palpus eighty times, iri 

 the manner above described, to the vulva of a female (both of which 

 had been placed in a clean glass phial), without the possibility of Ijring- 

 ing it into contact with the inferior surface of its abdomen, except by a 

 very conspicuous change of position ; and as an equal number of similar 

 acts were performed by the left palpus, we have the extraordinary fact 

 of the palpal organs being employed 160 times during this greatly pro. 

 tracted process, unaccompanied by any contact whatever with the part 

 where the seminal ducts are considered to terminate. 



A male Agelena labyrinthica, confined in a phial, spun a small web, 

 and among the lines of which it was composed I perceived that a drop 

 of white, milk-like fluid was suspended ; how it had been deposited there I 

 can not explain, but I observed that the spider, by the alternate appli- 

 cation of its palpal organs, speedily imbibed the whole of it. Perhaps 

 the only safe conclusion to be drawn from this very remarkable circum- 

 stance, taken in connection with the previously well ascertained office 

 of these parts, is, that it affords a complete answer in the affirmative 

 to the question, asked by M. Duges, namely, "le conjoncture ferait-il 

 alternativement I'office de siphon absorbant et d'orgaue ejaculateur ?'' 



