593 



Duges, namely, "le conjoncteur ferait-il alternativement l'office de si- 

 phon absorbant et d'organe djaculateur?"" 



It is astonishing, how long it sometimes can be before certain 

 scientific truths are generally acknowledged. That the genital bulb of 

 the palpus is the copulative organ of the male spiders, is not now 

 doubted by any one, who has occupied himself with studying the 

 natural history of these animals; on the other hand all who have 

 studied the anatomy of spiders, from Tuevibanus ') down to Duges 2 ), 

 Menge 3 ), yon Siebold ') and BOttchee 8 ) etc., have found, that no con- 

 nexion whatever can be traced between the organs which prepare 

 the spermatic fluid and the palpi, and that the testes open far from 

 these latter organs on the under side of the abdomen, near its an- 

 terior extremity, in a position corresponding to the vulva of the fe- 

 male; the little slit there, on which the efferent ducts of the testes 

 have their orifices, may sometimes (f. inst. in some species of The- 

 ridium) be seen with the naked eye or a simple magnifying lens. 

 Under such circumstances, what is more natural than to suppose, 

 that the sperma, previously to the coition, is in some way or other 

 transferred to the intromittent organs, the palpi? But even after 

 the manner, in which this is at least sometimes effected, had been 

 discovered by Menge, and confirmed by Aussebee (and in part also 

 by Bi.ackwall), we find the correctness of the observations of these 

 arachnologists doubted or denied; the belief that the testes have their 

 outlets into the palpi still has its followers, although no one has 



1) Ueber d. inneren Bau d. Araclm. , p. 77, Tab. 4, fig. 33 (1812). 



2) '"Nous noterons encore qu'il n'y a nulle communication directe entre ces 

 organes [the organs of copulation of the male] et ceux que Ton trouve dans l'ab- 

 domeu. De quelque maniere qu'on procede a la dissection, on ne voit, dans les 

 autres articles du palpe, aucun canal dirige vers le tronc; et dans le ventre, on 

 ne .trouve que deux longs tubes tres-flexue's , vermicules, comme le sont en gene- 

 ral les vaisseaux spermatiques , . . . . et ouverts en avant par deux orifices tres- 

 voisins, ou plutot par un orifice comraun entre les stigmates pulmonaires , et la 



meme oil, dans la femelle, se trouve la vulve. Ces canaux testiculaires mar- 



chent sans envoyer dans le corselet la moindre ramification'' • Duges, Observ. 



s. les Aran., p. 187 (1836). 



3) Ueber die Lebensweise d. Arachniden, pp. 39, 41 (1843); Preuss. Spinn., 

 I, pp. 32, 33 (1866). 



4) Lehrbuch d. vergleich. Anat. d. wirbellosen Thiere, p. 550 (1848). 



5) r Dass von den schlauchformigen Testikeln, wie fruhere Beobacbter zwar 

 auch nicht gesehen, doch vermuthet haben, Ausfuhrungsgange nach den . . . Palpen 

 fuhien, kann ich auf dass bestimmteste verneinen". BOttchee, Ueber d. anat. 

 Bau d. Kreuz-spinne , p. 15 (1850). 



