286 ME. P. H. GOSSE ON THE CLASPING-OEGANS 



conditions ? Its firm consistency, even when softened by the absorption of water, and 

 its condition, when dry, of a firm, solid, shining white mass, seem inconsistent with such 

 a conclusion. It may, possibly, not be without relevance, that the spinous disks of the 

 harpes were, in this specimen, unusually clogged with meconium and scales, suggestive 

 of a recent coitus at the period of capture. 



But I would rather incline to seek analogy with cases, not very infrequent, in which 

 the penis is manifestly separable into two longitudinal portions— a split tube of brown 

 chitine, and a pulpy white mass occupying, and more than filling, it *. (See my 

 figures of Hector, Codrus. Agamemnon, Erithonius, Podalirius.) 



Ornithopteka Darsius, Gray. (Plate XXVI. figs. 8-11.) 



Valve almost exactly as in O. Haliphron, save that the terminal finger-point is a little 



longer, and spathulate. The interior has a rather wide space within the ventral margin, 



level with it, before it abruptly drops to the cavity. 



The harpe also has a general resemblance, but is narrower, the disk more truncate, 

 more excavate, furnished with eight or ten stout and sharp teeth, all marginal. Viewed 



sidewise (PL XXVI. fig. 10) it takes something of the form of the human arm and open 



hand, but less bent back upon the wrist. 

 Uncus, much as in Haliphron, viewed laterally ; vertically, it is more slender, with a 



slight dilatation just behind the point. 

 Scaphittm, ample, with a deep thin keel, cjuite white. 



The penis, in the individual examined, again presented the very remarkable pheno- 

 menon which I have described in Haliphron. The organ was reversed, slender in the 

 column, with a very ventricose, one-sided trumpet-mouth, that had apparently been split 

 open by the extrusion of a great globose mass of the white substance. Here, as there, 

 several successive laruinse had, apparently, been thrust out, in various degrees, just as I 

 have there represented, all showing definite angular points. The white substance, so 

 much resembling the albumen of an egg coagulated, was, when I first looked at it, in 

 contact with the scapiiiuin. It absorbed water : after which I could easily, with a needle, 

 detach minute portions for microscopic examination. These, diffused in a drop of water 

 on a slip of glass, showed no trace of organization, but resolved themselves into irregular 

 atoms of amorphous matter. Fig. 11, PL XXVI., represents this penis viewed nearly 

 from the front, when most of the white matter had been removed. 



This phenomenon, which has occurred in three distinct species of Ornithoptera, viz. 

 0. llicliiuoiidia, Haliphron and Darsius, appears to me very curious and puzzling. I have 

 assumed that the strange substance is extruded ; but I am not sure. The splitting of 

 the walls of the penis, or, at least, the forcing apart of what, if expansible and separable 

 before, were normally closed, certainly suggests a thrusting-in from without, rather than 

 a thrusting-out from within. Yet this would be, a priori, most unlikely. Whence 

 should come the matter ? Why should it be pushed into this organ, when it does not 

 pervade and fill the surrounding parts ? This thought must be dismissed ; and the 



* Dr. Burmeister (Mun. Ent. 1S3U, p. 329) speaks of the turgescence of the organs of generation, before and during 



copulation. 



