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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLI 



stituting the base must be strongly adhesive when fresh, for the 

 spermatophore is firmly attached to the object on which it is de- 

 posited. The cap is usually hemispherical in form, with the con- 

 vex surface upward; but the material of which it consists often 

 runs down the side of the stalk, or is found projecting in downy 

 tufts like the cotton from an open cotton-boll. In many cases 

 the caps have a frayed appearance, as if they had been disturbed ; 

 in occasional specimens the cap of spermatozoa is partly or almost 

 wholly absent. The appearance in the latter case is like that of 

 a spermatophore of Triton viridescens from which I have seen the 

 ball of spermatozoa taken up into the cloaca of a female. The 

 dimensions of the complete spermatophore are about as follows : 



Height 6-8 mm. 



Breadth of base G-8 mm. 



Diameter of stalk near top. . .2.5-3 mm. 



" " cap 3-4 mm. 



As compared with some spermatophores of Triton viridescens 

 obtained from specimens in captivity, these under discussion are 

 slightly taller, with a smaller base and a stalk of much larger 

 diameter, surmounted by a larger mass of spermatozoa. The 

 spermatophore of Triton viridescens has a broad flattened base 

 from the center of which rises a distinctly conical stalk tapering 

 to a very slender spine, at the top of which aitaclicd a small ball 

 of spermatozoa; the spermatophores attnhntc<| lo Aniblystoma 



When found on April 9 and 10 the spermatophores were all in 

 Kood <()ti(htion, with some slight differences in the freshness of 

 tlieir appearance. In two or three days they became infested 

 with fungus, disintegrated quite rapidly, and in a week very few 

 few of them could be found. Had new ones been deposited in the 

 interval, they could readily have been distinguished from the 

 old ones; but no more spermatophores were deposited. Hence 

 it is scarcely possible that the period during which spermatophores 

 are deposited lasts longer than two or three days. 



I'he spermatophores shown in the figure had been attacked by 

 fuuirus and were beginning to disintegrate when photographed. 

 The hasc is thcn'fon" no lonucr clear, but on the contrary the 



