IN THE PHTSIOLOOY OF SPIDERS AND INSECTS. 157 



ue duly appreciated by arachnologists, whose attention hitherto 

 has been abnost exclusively directed to investigations having for 

 their object the discovery of the function performed by those 

 organs — a highly interesting pi'oblem undoubtedly, the solution of 

 which long continued to exercise the skill aud ingenuity of zoo- 

 tomists and physiologists. Though the palpal appendages are 

 now known to have a strictly sexual character, and have, in fact, 

 been demonstrated by experiment to constitute a true intromittent 

 organ absolutely essential to fecundation *, yet no direct commu- 

 nication has been ascertained to exist between them and certain 

 vermicular vessels situated in the abdomen, and usually regarded 

 as testes, whose ducts terminate in the space intermediate between 

 the branchial stigmata. M. Duges has attempted to obviate this 

 difficulty by shrewdly suggesting that these parts may have been 

 voluntarily brought together prior to the act of copulation, and 

 then proceeds to ask, "le conjoncture" (palpal organ) " ferait-il 

 alternativement 1' office de siphon absorbant et d'organe ejacula- 

 teur?" — a question which he answers in the following terms : — 

 " cela se pent, mais je n'ai rien pu observer, qui justifiat directe- 

 ment cette conjectiire." f 



In a concise notice of a work on the habits of the Araclinida, 

 by A. Menge, given in the ' Reports on Zoology,' for 1843 & 1844, 

 p. 195, published by the Eay Society, the following passage occurs : 

 — " Copulation. It was reserved for the author to solve the physio- 

 logical 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 de- 

 scribed in various Spiders," Not having had an opportunity of 

 perusing the work of M. Menge, I am unable to state the par- 

 ticular 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 



* Researches in Zoology, pp. 295-298 ; Report of the Fourteenth Meeting 

 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, pp. 67-69. 



t Anuales des Sciences Naturelles, 2de serie, Zoologie, tome vi. pp. 189, 

 190. 



LINN. PROC. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. Yll, 13 



