274 ARACHNIDA—XIPHOSURA CHAP. 
water. I have not been able to watch the process more closely 
because the animals le so close to the sand, and all the append- 
ages are concealed beneath the carapace. If touched during the 
oviposition, they cease the operation and 
wander to another spot or separate and re- 
turn to deep water. I have never seen the 
couples come entirely out of the water, 
although they frequently come so close to 
the shore that portions of the carapace are 
uncovered.” ! 
The developing ova and young larvae are 
very hardy, and in a httle sea-water, or still 
better packed in sea-weed, will survive long 
journeys. In this way they have been 
transported from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
coasts of the United States, and for a time 
at any rate flourished in the western waters. 
Three barrels full of them consigned from 
Woods Holl to Sir E. Ray Lankester arrived 
in England with a large proportion of larvae 
alive and apparently well. 
According to Kishinouye, ZL. longispina 
spawns chiefly in August and between tide- 
Z marks. “The female excavates a hole about 
eco eo a 15 em. deep, and deposits eggs in it while the 
the female Limulus male fertilises them. The female afterwards 
hosel arr ca es Se buries them, and begins to excavate the next 
the round “nests” hole.”? A line of nests (Fig. 157) is thus 
eee established which is always at right angles 
apparently exhausted. to the shore-line. After a certain number 
Ne ne eee of nests have been formed the female tires, 
and the heaped up sand is not so prominent. 
In each “nest” there are about a thousand eggs, placed first to 
the left side of the nest and then to the right, from which Kishi- 
nouye concludes that the left ovary deposits its ova first and then 
the right. Limulus rotundicauda and L. moluccanus do not bury 
their eggs, but carry them about attached to their swimmerets. 
The egg is covered by a leathery egg-shell which bursts after 
a certain time, and leaves the larva surrounded only by the 
1 Kingsley, /oc. cit. 2 J. Coll. Tokyo. v., 1893, p. 53. 
