128 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
VITt. 
It is now generally believed by araneologists that the digital joint or 
bulbus of the palp is the copulative organ of male spiders. We are 
indebted to the careful observations of Menge’ for the discovery 
Use of of the method by which the male transfers the sperma from his 
sexual aperture to his palps, and so, through the palps, to the 
vulva of the female. Blackwall, however, with that keenness of 
observation and judgment which characterized this distinguished English 
naturalist, independently observed the process.2 A male Agalena labyrin- 
thica confined in a phial spun a small web, and among the lines of which 
it was composed he perceived that a drop of milklike fluid was suspended. 
He had not observed how it was deposited, but saw that the spider by the 
alternate application of his palpal organs speedily imbibed the whole of 
it. The conclusion which he derived from this circumstance was to con- 
firm the acute suspicion of M. Dugés that the palpal bulb alternately 
performs the office of an absorbing syphon and an organ of ejection.* 
The fact first made known by Menge has been abundantly confirmed by 
Ausserer* and Professor Bertkau,® and later by Mr. F. M. Campbell,® and 
in part by the author.” 
The former belief that the testes have their outlet into the palp has 
now very few, if any, advocates. Those who have most carefully studied 
_ the anatomy of spiders, from the earliest to the latest students,® 
Location jaye found that no connection whatever can be traced between 
of Testes. 5 : ; 
the organs which prepare the spermatic fluid and the palps, and 
that the testes are far from these latter organs, on the under side of the 
abdomen, near its anterior extremity, in a position corresponding to the 
female yulva. The little slit there, on which the efferent ducts of the 
testes have their orifices, may sometimes be seen with the naked eye or a 
simple magnifying lens. Under such circumstances one may well ask with 
Thorell,? what is more natural than to suppose that the sperma, previous 
to coition, is in some way or other transferred to the intromittent organs, 
the palps? That this transmission always takes place in the manner 
directly observed by Menge in the case of Agalena and Linyphia is indeed 
Palps. 
1Ueber die Lebenweise d. Arachn. Naturf. Gessellsch. in Danzig, IV., I., pages 39-41 
(1843) ; Preuss. Spinn. f. inst. I., page 106 (1866). 
2 Journal Proceedings Linn, Soc. Zool., VII., pages 157, 158. 
3 Obsery, sur les Aran., Ann. d. Soc. Nat. Ser. Zool., VI., pages 189, 190. 
4*“Beobactungen tiber die Lebenweisse,” etc., Zeittchr. Ferdinandeums, 1867. 
5“Ueber den Generations apparat der Arachniden,”’ Arch. Nat. Gesch., 1875, page 254. 
6° “Pairing of Teg. guyonii,” Linn. Soc. Jour. Zool., X VI., 1638. 
7See Vol. II., page 41 and page 73. 
* Treviranus, Ueber d. inneren Bau d. Arachn., page 77, tab. iv., Fig. 33 (1812); Mencr 
Preuss. Spinn., I., pages 32, 33 (1866). 
* Synonyms Europ. Spid., page 593. 
