130 ARACHNIDA. 



^^'ith the act of impregnation, respecting which the most 

 celebrated physiologists are at variance ; and though the 

 pages of the present work can hardly be considered a proper 

 field for discussions connected v^ith this subject, it may be 

 proper to state that it was considered one of such importance, 

 that, at the meeting of the British Association for the Pro- 

 motion of Science at Cambridge, the inquiry as to the true 

 male organs of generation in the spiders was one of the three 

 questions proposed relative to the annulose animals. 



The developement of the embryo of the spiders has been 

 traced in a most elaborate manner by -NI. Herold, of which 

 a notice will be found in the Insect Transformations, pp. 123, 

 124. (Untersuchungen iiber die Bildungs-geschichte der 

 Wirbellosen Thiere im Eie. Marburg, 1824.) 



From various observations, it is evident that the limbs of 

 the Arachnida are capable of reproduction when mutilated. 

 This faculty, together with the longevity of some species, 

 various pecuharities of structure, and especially the circum- 

 stance that some spiders engender more than once during 

 the course of their lives, evidently prove the distance which 

 exists between this class and the insects, and their greater 

 proximity with the Crustacea. 



As to the classification of this class, it is to be observed, 

 that we are indebted, for the most part, to the works of 

 foreigners for those ^-iews which have been adopted in the 

 modern arrangements of the annulose animals. In the work 

 of our countryman Lister, published in 1678, " Historia3 

 Animalium Angliae tractatus de Araneis," are, indeed, to be 

 found many very good coloured figures of British spiders, as 

 well as the first attempt at their distribution ; but until 

 within the last few years, arachnology seems to have been 

 banished from the studies of British naturalists, and taken 

 up its a})ode in France, where, under the hands of Savigny, 

 Latreille, and, above all, the Baron Walckenaer, it has arrived 

 at a high state of cultivation. We may now, however, boast 



