No. 3.] SPERMATOPHORES. 



401 



question as to how the spermatophores empty themselves, and 

 whether fecundation is internal or external, has received different 

 answers. Grobben {I.e., p. 75) does not attempt to decide by 

 what agent the spermatophore is made to burst and discharge 

 its contents. In the Brachyura they are supposed to be dis- 

 solved in the bursa copidatrix of the female. Leuckart (Zeugiing., 

 p. 900) accounts for the escape of the contents of the sperm- 

 case thus : " The walls gradually harden and compress the con- 

 tents until the capsule bursts, or (as in the case of Astacus and 

 insects) until it flows out of the open end." Paul Meyer (Jen. 

 Zeitschr., 1877, p. 204) thinks it is not the water that causes 

 the spermatophore to burst (in Galathea and Pagura), and sug- 

 gests that the secretion with which the female fastens the eggs 

 to its legs may be the agent that accomplishes this. 



It is in Peripatus and the Copepods that we find modes of 

 impregnation more or less closely analogous to what takes place 

 in the Rhynchobdellidae. 



ADAM SEDGWICK. The Development of Peripatus Capensis. Quart. Jour. 

 Micr. Sci. N. S. XCIX. July, 1885. pp. 453-54. 



a. Peripatus. — " The ovaries contain spermatozoa, some of which 

 project through the ovarian walls into the hody-cavity. This condition 

 has been figured and described by Moseley.^ 



"The ovaries always contain spermatozoa, but in smaller numbers 

 directly after the eggs have passed into the oviduct than at any other 

 time. This is a very marked feature of an ovary, say, at the beginning 

 of April, when compared with an ovary from which the ova have just 

 passed into the oviducts, say, at the beginning of May, the former being 

 of an opaque white color to the naked eye, while the latter has a much 

 more transparent appearance. 



" This fact would seem to imply that fresh spermatozoa pass each year 

 into the ovaries. This brings me to the question of the manner in which 

 the male discharges his function. The vesiculce seminales (testes of 

 Moseley and Balfour) are almost empty of spermatozoa in the months 

 of February, March, and April. At the end of April, however, they 

 begin to swell again and contain spermatozoa, which increase in number 

 as time goes on, until, in October, they are fully distended with sper- 

 matozoa in all stages of development. There seetns to be no functional 

 intromittent organ, but the male deposits little oval spermatophores quite 

 casually on any part of the body of the female, and, for all that I hiow, 



1 Phil. Trans., Vol. 164. 



