4i8 



is viviparous like Hemimerus. Probably no true Earwigs are 

 viviparous. There are two mature females in this consignment, 

 both caught in copula, their broken-oñ tail-ends still being firmly 

 fixed to the likewise broken-oft' tail-ends of the males. The 

 soft parts of the specimens are strongly macerated. One of the 

 tail-ends contains a large embryo, a second embryo projected 

 from the female which is the owner of the tail-end (according to 

 the number of segments in the tail-end and the remainder of 

 the abdomen on the specimen), and two more were floating 

 in the tube. These embryos are all of the same size, and appar- 

 ently almost full-grown, chitinisation being well advanced. 

 Their callipers are not segmented. Judging from the tissues 

 projecting from the one female and the corresponding tail-end, 

 the four embryos belong to this one specimen. What is left of 

 the ovaries contains several small egg-cells and one or two 

 minute embryos — this observation, in connection with the fact 

 that the pregnant female is in copula, rendering it evident that 

 propagation extends over a considerable period in Arixenia, 

 budding going on at the apex of the ovaries as the embryos nearer 

 the orifice of the oviduct ripen. We have here a case of ovarial 

 pregnancy similar to that of Hemimerus, but it remains to be 

 seen whether there is, as in Hemimerus, an amnion, placenta, 

 and vesícula cephalica. 



The large opening of the oviduct lies in the membrane between 

 the seventh and eighth sternites at a considerable distance from 

 the latter when the segments are pulled apart (text-fig. 23, o.od). 

 At the proximal end of the groove, flanked by the two halves 

 of the eighth sternite (st. 8), we find the orifice (o.rs) of a gland 

 which I consider as the modified receptaculum seminis (text-fig. 

 26, rs). In an abdomen not stretched out, but normally tele- 

 scoped, the orifice of this gland lies above and behind the entrance 

 to the oviduct. The supposed receptacle consists of a long tube 

 coiled up and forming a fairly compact body on a short coiled- 

 up stalk. There is no receptacle of the usual kind (sausage- 

 shape). We find along the tube at short intervals large cells, 

 which are. probably of a glandular nature. However, we are 

 by no means sure about the function of the organ. In the twa 

 pairs sent in copula the tip of the penis reaches exactly to the 

 orifice of the duct of this accessory organ. 



