526 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



were placed in the aquarium he kept in the verandah. Many a day have I 

 spent with our old friend Eha, in searching the valley to the west of the 

 Malabar Hill reservoir, for mosquito larvse for the purpose of feeding these 

 hungry tish. We used to call the Pikus " scooties " because of the extreme 

 nimbleness of the tish and the way they dart about like boys after a 

 football. 



Observing the eagerness with which the scooties devoured mosquito 

 larvse Mr. Aitken introduced a lot into the basin of the Wellington Fountain 

 in front of the Sailors' Home in Bombay with the object of keeping the 

 water free of larvse ; but alas, boy nature is the same all the world over, and 

 in a few days our scooties had disappeared. The locality where he got 

 the scooties from was the pool below the bund of the Vehar Reservoir, where 

 they swarm in hundreds. 



I can add my testimony to the value of these fish as devourers of larvse 

 for I have kept them ever since in the tank in my fernery at Parel, and I 

 can never find any mosquito larvse there. 



W. B. BANNERMAN, m.d., d.sc, 

 Pakel, Bombay, July 1910. Lt.-Colonel, i.m.s. 



No. XXIV.—PAIRING OF THE SPIDER NEPHILA MACULATA, 



FABR. 



For a long time the manner of the copulation of spiders was a subject of 

 much doubt and speculation, as also the purpose of the specialisation of the 

 male palpal organ. 



In recent years research has revealed the delicate anatomy of the male 

 palp and its adaptation as a sort of force pump capable of taking up and 

 ejecting the seminal fluid. It has also been discovered that the fertilisation 

 of the female is not effected by direct copulation, but through the agency 

 of the male palp as an intromittent organ. However, direct observations 

 have been very few, so that a description hardly needs an analogy. 



With so large a spider" as Nephila maculata (the body of the female is 

 about 35 mm. long), observation is specially favourable, and I consider 

 myself fortunate in happening on a pair in the act. 



The male of Nephila maculata (of all the Nephila I believe) is very much 

 smaller than the female and bears no resemblance to her. As the male is 

 not described in the volume of The Fauna of British India on Arachnida, it 

 may be of interest if I transcribe a short description from my notes. 



" Length of body 8 to 10 mm., uniform light brown, the abdomen of a 

 slightly darker shade than the thorax ; legs in the same proportion as in 

 the female and darker brown than the abdomen. Palp with a globular 

 appendage terminated by a long acumen, globular portion jet black with 

 black bristles above. The abdomen is rounded oval and not elongate as in 

 the female " (see figure of the latter on page 218, Arachnida, loc. cit). 



I 



