SEXUAL ACTIVITIES OF THE SQUID 343 
the functional activities of these arms, but most of the observa- 
tions have consisted in finding sperm reservoirs recently attached 
to various portions of females. 
In 1869 Lafont described copulation i in Sepia. A translation 
of that portion that deals with the act itself is as follows: 
In copulation the male and fernale precipitate themselves upon one an- 
other, hold together by their arms which are twined together, and remain 
thus, mouth to mouth, for a variable time, which may last for two or 
three minutes. This act is followed in the female by a state of very 
marked general prostration, while in the case of the male the general 
excitation is greatly prolonged and for a considerable time it keeps the 
splendid appearance these animals show as the result of the accomplish- 
ment of the function of reproduction. 
He supposed that while the animals were attached by their 
arms, head to head, the male ejected a packet of spermatophores, 
which ejaculated while in his mantle chamber and the sperm reser- 
voirs were then thrown from the funnel of the male into the bran- 
chial chamber of the female with the current of water entering her 
branchial chamber. 
Sepia, like Loligo, has a receptacle for the storage of spermato- 
zoa in the buccal membrane, and the position observed by Lafont 
of animals attached head to head was doubtless a true position 
of copulation, but it seems probable that the spermatophores were 
not disposed of in the way suggested, but were transferred to the 
buccal membrane by one of the arms of the male. Lafont found 
sperm reservoirs attached in the mantle chamber of the females 
near the mouths of the oviducts, so it seems probable that in this 
form, as in Loligo pealii, both methods of copulation occur. 
Racovitza (1894, a) observed copulation inSepiola. The male . 
seized the female, turned it over and inserted his first pair of arms 
into the mantle chamber. Copulation lasted eight minutes dur- 
ing which the female struggled to free herself. He speaks of the 
spermatophores being fixed on the folds of a large pocket situated 
on the left side of the pallial cavity of the female. These ejacu- 
late and the freed reservoirs deliver their sperm into the pocket 
