595 



aperture with the lamina buibi or pars tarsalis of the palpus; aud 

 he then proceeds to show — which of course is not very difficult — 

 that such a representation of the functions of the lamina is in fact 

 "gerade gesprochen absurd". Herman further informs us that "he has 

 come to the result, that the male spider's palpus is a perfect organ 

 of copulation, which communicates with the reservoirs of sperma si- 

 tuated in the abdomen by means of the stalk that connects the ce- 

 phalothorax with the abdomen"; but he wisely takes care not to 

 affirm that he has himself seen the ducts whereby this communica- 

 tion takes place. All that he can adduce in proof of the "result" at 

 which he has arrived, is, that if we "immediately before or during 

 coitus" press the abdomen, the pressure causes "a formal erection of 

 the palpi". We may be permitted to wonder, whether it were not 

 merely the nutritive fluid or blood, that Herman by this delicate 

 experiment pressed into the animal's palpi; perhaps the experiment 

 might succeed at other times than just previously to or during coi- 

 tus, and may not the "erection" have extended to the legs as well 

 as to the palpi? 



(L. c, pp. 29, 30.) The organ, which Blackwall looks upon as 

 corresponding to a fourth pair of mamillae grown together, and which 

 I have called the inframamillary organ (= cribellnm L. Koch), I have 

 lately subjected to a renewed examination, which however, — per- 

 haps partly because I had no fresh specimens, but only such as were 

 preserved in spirits, to employ — has not led to any satisfactory 

 result. As I have already stated, this organ differs greatly in its 

 structure from the mamillae: it does not form, like these even in 

 their simplest form, a cylinder evidently articulating with the ab- 

 domen, but consists merely of a particularly modified, somewhat 

 elevated portion of the skin. Spinning tubes, at least such as are 

 found on the mamillae, are entirely absent. In Amaurobhcs, f. inst, 

 the inframamillary organ is very densely covered with small spots of 

 a paler colour resembling punctures, and bearing each in its centre 

 a very fine, rather long, whitish hair: the hairs with which the in- 

 framamillary organ thus is covered, are of about equal length and 

 thickness, only a little thicker at the base, blunt, not tapering 

 towards their apices. On preparations of the inframamillary organ 

 of Amaurobius ferox (for which I have to thank my friend Dr T. 

 Tullberg) I have thought I could perceive a thick bundle of fine 

 parallel tubuli stretching from the inframamillary organ's inner sur- 

 face to a large glandular organ, situated near to it in the posterior 



