180 E. A. AnprEws, 
barus, was seen to spend some days cleaning the under side of the 
abdomen preparatory to laying and fastening the eggs to the pleo- 
pods, doing much of the scratching off of dirt with the specialized 
comb and picks of the fifth legs. In Panulirus some such use may 
be made of the fifth legs by the female, but this would not neces- 
sarily involve the use of the claws on the fifth legs as the tips 
might be sufficient. However the claws may have the added sexual 
use of continuing the cleaning to such an extent as to attempt to 
remove the sperm-containing mass previously fastened to the female 
by the male, this partial removal would liberate the sperm at the 
time the eggs were issuing, supposing the consisteney of the sper- 
matophore mass resisted all but the last efforts of the female to 
clean off all the ventral surface. A general cleanine reflex might 
thus lead to a release of the sperm at the richt time to meet, 
the eggs. 
In support of this supposition are the facts that the dark sper- 
matophore masses are more perfect in females that have not laid, 
while in females that are carrying the eggs on the pleopods the 
spermatophore masses are more or less torn so that scarcely half 
may remain with a lacerated anterior edge. 
By applying the fifth claw to this mass it was found possible 
to tear off bits of the mass at the lacerated anterior edge by 
strongly squeezing the claw shut and using it as a pair of forceps. 
Possibly the female could exert as much force, in time; at all events 
the anterior edge had been torn off in fragments either by this elaw 
or by some of the pointed tips of the legs. 
The persistence of so large a part of the spermatophore mass 
eontaining innumerable sperms even when the female had eggs on 
the pleopods advanced far enough in development to show large 
eyes, suggests that the sperm once applied might last for a second 
batch of eggs, if there be not a moulting between the two batches 
of eggs, and if there were no new application of sperm from 
the male. 
This specialized claw, Fig. A, is remarkable in being a new 
formation in which the tip of the leg is left unchanged while the 
forceps is made from two new protuberances, one at the proximal 
end of the last segment of the leg and one at the distal end of the 
penultimate segment. The forceps thus formed is like a short beak, the 
more so since the opposing faces are each hollowed out and with 
a hard horny rim about the tip and sides of the depression, sug- 
