ANNALS 



OF 



The Entomological Society of America 



Volume III SEPTEMBER, 1910 Number 3 



THE PALPI OF MALE SPIDERS. 



By John Henry Comstock. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The remarkable modification of the palpi of the males of 

 spiders into organs for the transference of the seminal fluid to 

 the female at the time of pairing of the sexes attracted the 

 attention of naturalists at a very early date; and the great 

 variety of forms presented by these organs has led systematists 

 to make much use of them in taxonomic work. In practically 

 all of the more important works on the classification of spiders 

 there are figures and descriptions of the palpi of males. 



Notwithstanding the general recognition of the value of 

 these organs for taxonomic purposes our knowledge of their 

 structure is very inadequate. Several important contributions 

 to this subject have been published and are well known, notably 

 those of Westring CGI), Menge ('66), Bertkau ('75 and '78), 

 Wagner ('87), Van Hasselt ('89), and Chamberhn ('04 and 

 '08). Still we find, even in the more recent publications, 

 figures of palpi given with almost no effort to identify their 

 parts; and even when some of the parts are named we find differ- 

 ent terms applied to homologous parts in the descriptions of 

 different genera. 



The necessity of selecting from the many terms that have 

 been proposed for parts of the palpi, a set to be used in a hand- 

 book of North American Spiders that the writer has in prepara- 

 tion, and the need of terms for parts that have not been des- 

 cribed, has led to the preparation of this paper. It is hoped that 

 the publication of it may tend to bring about a greater uniform- 

 ity in nomenclature and an increased use in systematic works of 

 the extremely valuable characters presented b}'- these organs. 



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