314 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 
them adult males, taking care to remove the latter as 
soon as a connexion had been consummated in the 
usual manner, by the application of the palpal organs 
to the orifice situated between the branchial opercula 
in the females. I never, in a single instance, suffered 
the sexes to remain together any longer than I found 
it convenient to continue my observations ; and I may 
remark that their union, however prolonged and un- 
disturbed, was invariably accomplished in the manner 
stated above, without the slightest deviation being 
perceptible on the most minute inspection. After a 
lapse of several weeks, the females, thus impregnated, 
respectively fabricated their cocoons and deposited 
their eggs in them, all of which proved to be prolific, 
affording a complete refutation of the opinion promul- 
gated by M. Treviranus. 
In the act of copulation, the extremity of the organ 
of each palpus of the male, in a state of tumefaction, 
is usually introduced alternately into the vulva of the 
female, and that many times in succession, without 
being once brought into contact with any part of its 
own abdomen, though it is very frequently conveyed 
to the mouth; and I have observed a male Lycosa 
lugubris apply its right palpus eighty times, in the 
manner above described, to the vulva of a female 
(both of which had been placed in a clean glass phial), 
without the possibility of bringing it into contact with 
the inferior surface of its abdomen, except by a very 
conspicuous change of position; and as an equal 
