162 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
Further dissection was done in a 75 per cent. solution of salt and water, 
under a Leitz simple dissecting microscope. The alimentary canal and its 
diverticula were removed, and the remainder of the dissection resolved into a 
teasing out of nerves, muscle, fibres and trachez, leaving the reproductive 
organs exposed. In the case of the male special care was necessary not to 
sever the testes from the vasa deferentia. 
In making permanent preparations from dissections, these were fixed or 
hardened by gentle steaming, and then stained with carmine or hematoxylin, 
and reduced in acidified alcohol. They were then washed in 70 per cent., 
80 per cent., and absolute alcohol, and mounted in Canada balsam in the 
usual manner. 
The complete reproductive organs of Hylobius abietis have not yet been 
described. Nitsche! gives a small figure of the male organs without the penis. 
Fuchs? figures certain parts of the male and female genitalia. In neither 
case is any verbal description given. 
In regard to the literature of the subject generally, I find that it is some- 
what scanty, especially in works concerned with the genitalia. The only 
description in English of the genitalia of the weevils I have been able to refer 
to is Hopkins’ * Monograph of the Genus Pissodes. Of the German literature, 
the various papers by Fuchs, Verhoeff* and Nusslin® have been most useful. 
THE FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS. 
These comprise the ovaries, the paired oviducts, the unpaired oviduct or 
uterus, the receptaculum seminis, the bursa copulatrix, and the vagina 
(Fig. 1). The accessory organs or genitalia consist of the seventh and eighth 
terga, the eighth sternum, and the so-called spiculum ventrale representing 
part of the ninth sternum. 
The ovaries are two in number, lying on either side of the median line. 
They are attached to the fourth tergum. LHach ovary consists of two egg- 
tubes, each opening into the paired oviducts. The terminal chambers are 
large, about one-fifth of the total length of the ovary in the mature weevil. 
Below the terminal chamber the ege-tube resembles a string of pearls, due 
to the ova in it. The eggs are oval in shape, and in the ege-tubes lie up and 
down. In the paired oviducts of the mature insect, however, they may lie 
directly across them in an irregular group. At the junction of the egg-tubes 
1 Judeich and Nitsche, Forstinsektenkunde, 1888 ed., p. 58. 
* Morphologische Studien iiber Borkenpaper, Part II., Munich, 1912. 
sulletin 87, American Bureau of Entomology. 
‘ Various papers in the Deutsche Ento, Zeitschrift, 1893-94. 
© Leitfaden der Forstinsektenkunde, 1913, 
