STRUCTURE AND ECONOMY OF SPIDERS. 315 
number of similar acts were performed by the left 
palpus, we have the extraordinary fact of the palpal 
organs being employed 160 times during this greatly 
protracted process, unaccompanied by any contact 
whatever with the part where the seminal ducts are 
considered to terminate. 
A male Agelena labyrinthica, confined in a phial, 
spun a small web, and among the lines of which it 
was composed I perceived that a drop of white milk- 
like fluid was suspended : how it had been deposited 
there I cannot explain ; but I observed that the spider, 
by the alternate application of its palpal organs, 
speedily imbibed the whole of it. Perhaps the only 
safe conclusion to be drawn from this very remark- 
able circumstance, taken in connexion with the previ- 
ously well-ascertained office of these parts, is that it 
affords a complete answer in the affirmative to a ques- 
tion asked by M. Dugés, namely, “le conjoncture ” 
(palpal organ) “ ferait-il alternativement J’office de 
siphon absorbant et d’organe éjaculateur ?” 
Having repeated the foregoing experiment with 
numerous species of spiders, and the results obtained 
being uniformly the same, there did not appear to be 
any necessity for pursuing the investigation further ; 
nevertheless, that there might not remain the slightest 
doubt on the mind of the most fastidious inquirer, 
in the summer of 1832 I brought up from the egg 
young females of the species petra calophylla, which, 
when they had arrived at maturity, I treated in the 
