•386 ME. H. M. BEENARD ON THE 



The lumen of tliese membranous tubes is completely filled with i-ound cells arranged 

 in groups *, each group being, perhaps, the product of a sperm mother-cell. I have not 

 seen the transformation of these into the filiform condition, nor the formation of the 

 spermatophoral envelopes. Kittary, in describing vv-hat I take to be these tubes, thought 

 them to be full of future eggs, and he described the spermatophore as a ripe egg. Dufour 

 figures two types of male organs, but does not seem to have seen any spermatophores ; 

 when he found them in the ovaries he described them as eggs, and was even unconsciously 

 misled into drawing eggs, budding from the wall of the ovary, oval like the sjierma- 

 tophores. Birula, has, however, as above stated, discovered the true relations. 



The sperm is arranged in a number of distinct longitudinal bu.ndles within the sperma- 

 tophores, each bundle showdng a fine longitudinal striation, due to its composition out of 

 filamentous sperm-cells which are arranged longitudinally. The silky look of the sperma- 

 tophoral envelope is due to the fact that it is so thin and delicate that it fits closely to 

 the contained sperm and takes a slight impi-int of the fine striation due to the ultimate 

 sperm-cells. 



Copulatory organs are altogether wanting. Birula states that in G. ater and G. ara- 

 noides the genital apertures of male and female were alike. 



The genital glands of Galeodes do not therefore differ greatly from those of other Arachnids, 

 Whether the paired ovaries meet and fuse, or the testicular tubules anastomose or not, is a point of 

 mo morphological significance. Their different developments in this respect seem to depend largely on 

 the development of the alimentary diverticula. In Galeodes the alimentary system keeps the genital 

 glands apart ; in the Pseudoscorpions they can easily fuse in the space left in the middle line beneath the 

 hind-gut. In Scorpio the alimentary diverticula are arranged in definite segmental masses, between 

 ■which the genital glands can spread, and thus may join across the middle line. In the Spiders the 

 ovaries seem to fuse posteriorly in some cases and not in others. In Phrynus, according to Blanchard, 

 the ovaries do not fuse; in Thelyphonus, according to Tarnani, they also do not normally fuse, 

 although this author describes in a note a singular case of transverse anastomosing between them. In 

 the Phalangids and the Acari the genital glands appear generally, if not always, to fuse posteriorly. 



There can, then, I think, be little doubt that the anastomosing of these glands in the Arachnids is a 

 secondary development, and that the primitive condition is that in which the glands are paired tubes 

 "without any transverse fusion. 



Copulatory organs are also generally absent in the Arachnids, excepting in the highly-specialized 

 Phalangids. The so-called penis of Phrynus appears to be formed of the remains of a pair of jointed 

 limbs of the genital segment. They may have sexual functions in addition to the two ascertained 

 functions, (1) to hold fast the cocoon, and (2) to spin the threads which strengthen the cocoon. 

 Spinning-glands open near their tips (77). This 'penis' can hardly be an intromittent organ. The 

 remarkable ram's-horn organs of the Pseudoscorpions have been thought to function as penes, but I 

 believe them to be a primitive form of trachea (10). 



In the Pseudoscorpions the cement-glands belonging to the 2nd and 3rd abdominal segments serve 

 somewhat the same purpose as the spinning-glands of Phrynus ; they are said to stick the eggs on to 

 the abdomen. From this primitive habit the cocoon of Phrynus may have developed. 



In the Spiders, glands still more posteriorly placed, and opening on the spinning-mamillse, prepare 



* These cells appear very like the homologous bodies in the testes of Scor^no, and also not unlike the bodies 

 figured by Tarnani (71) as occurring in tubules in the abdomen of Thelyphonus ( J ), which he describes as " glands " 

 opening into an unpaired reservoir in connection with the genital apparatus. Are these not the sperm-cells? 



