138 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Jan., 



her with her legs, she falling into a state of torpor in his embrace. 

 With his chelicera he pinches the ventral surface of her abdomen, 

 which is turned toward his, until he finds the cleft of her genital 

 orifice. "Die Cheliceren werden herausgezogen, nochmals eingebohrt, 

 und das Mannchen kneift auch wohl wiederholt mit denselben in die 

 weichen Wandungen des Ostium genitale. Es dauert nicht lange, so 

 tritt die ganze weibliche Genitalpartie wulstformig hervor, und die 

 Genitaloffnung wird als ein klaffender Spalt erkennbar. Die Erregung 

 des Mannchens hat nunmehr den Hohepunkt erreicht ; zitternd bewegt 

 es beide Maxillarpalpen und hebt den Hintcrleib ein wenig, aus dessen 

 Genitaloffnung ein zahfliissiger klebriger Spermaballen hervorquillt. 

 Kaum ist dieser auf den Boden gelangt, so wird er auch schon blitz- 

 schnell von den Cheliceren des jMiinnchens aufgenommen und an die 

 weibliche Genitaloffnung gebracht. Hierauf stopft das Mannchen, 

 abwechselnd die rechte und linke Chelicere benutzend, die zahe Sperma- 

 masse in die Oeffnung hinein, wobei es wieder mit grosser Gewalt- 

 thatigkeit zu Werke geht." The process is simpler in Gakodes, inas- 

 much as the sperm is discharged during the act of copulation, and 

 inasmuch as the terminal joints of the chelicera do not possess any- 

 intricate tubular apparatus for holding the sperm. But the araneid 

 copulation cannot be derived from the galeolid, since in the former the 

 pedipalpi, in the latter the chehcera, are employed. In the Acarina 

 and Scorpionidea there are intromittent organs (penis) in the male, 

 placed near the genital orifice.^ 



Number of Copulations. — In araneids the male is able to perform a 

 number of successive copulations, with the same or wath different 

 females, without being exhausted; this fact may be brought into rela- 

 tion with the fact that before each act of sperm-induction only a small 

 drop of sperm is discharged, and by no means the whole contents of 

 the testes. One act of fertilization is in some cases sufficient to fer- 

 tilize a number of cocoons, yet not infrequently several distinct copu- 

 lations may precede one cocooning. This is in contrast to the case in 

 insects, where the male generally performs a single act of copulation, 

 and dies of exhaustion after it. The female sometimes kills the male 

 after copulation, but this is by no means so general as usually supposed, 



^In all insects the intromittent organ of the male is organically connected 

 with the vas deferens, except in the Odonata where, as is well kno-v\Ti, this organ 

 is placed on the second abdominal segment, and the male holds the head of the 

 female with the claspers of his last abdominal segment. My colleague, Dr. 

 P. P. Calvert, the well-known monographer of the Odonata, tells me that he has 

 seen the male charge his penis with semen just before copulation by bringing 

 his sexual orifice against this organ. 



