THE AMERICAN LOBSTER. 
37 
Boeck asserts ( 20 ) in liis liistory of the Norwegian lobster fishery, that a real act of 
copulation takes place, the male placing its double male member (modified appendages 
of the first abdominal somite) into the outer genital openings of the female, and that 
the eggs are impregnated while they are yet in the ovary. 
Fraiclie ( 70 ) says that the union of the sexes takes place in the fall of the year 
(October and November) for the common and Norwegian lobsters, and in the case of 
the former species extends into winter: 
As with the crayfish, the sexual act is accomplished belly to belly, and so closely and firmly do 
they clasp each other, that, if taken from the water at this period, it is with difficulty that they can 
lie separated. 
He thinks that the seminal fluid is introduced directly into the oviducts, and 
says that the sides of the abdomen secrete a viscous substance which incloses the 
eggs and attaches them to the body of the female. 
The question, How is the fertilization of the eggs effected in Crustacea"? is one 
which has been asked by naturalists from the days of Aristotle down to the present 
century, and it has received the most varied and contradictory answers. A brief 
account of the history of opinion on this subject has been given by Brocchi in his 
thesis on the male organs of the decapod Crustacea, published in 1875 ( 25 ). One 
source of difficulty lay, as recent studies have proved, in supposing that the process 
was essentially the same in both Macrura and Brachyura. 
Porzio 1 and Oavolini (56’), 1 among the older writers, as Brocchi shows, had clearer 
ideas upon this question than their immediate successors. Thus the Neapolitan 
physician, Porzio, says, in his study on the lobster: 
Organa autem propagation is et generationis sic construct.^ sunt, ut facilem non inveuiam 
rationem qua maris semen, iu feminse corpus ejaculari, infuncli, vel introiri possit. 
Oavolini also remarks in his memoir on generation, published in 1787, that — 
The Crustacea copulate face to face, with the penis on the outside of the body; there is no intro- 
mission, for the papilla which we have shown to he present on the base of the last pair of legs can 
scarcely serve to make a passage for the semen ; the eggs are glued to the hairs of the female aud are 
bathed in the semen (36). 
Milne Edwards ( 58 ) in his Histoire Naturelle des Crustaces, published in 1834, 
expressed some true ideas upon the reproductive processes in the Crustacea which were 
not comprehended by many subsequent writers. At the same time he falls into errors 
in regard to certain organs and their functions. He says that the first two pairs of 
abdominal appendages in the male, which are often so different from the following 
pairs, seem to serve as exciting organs in the act of reproduction, but that naturalists 
have been mistaken in regarding them as representing the penis. In many cases, as in 
Gegarcinus, their size would make it impossible for them to penetrate into the vulva, 
and he says “ we have proved, by direct observation, that in others it is the lower end 
of the efferent canal which is alone introduced into the body of the female.” These 
appendages apparently assist in directing the penis toward the vulva, and possibly in 
exciting the latter. (See note 1, p. 39.) He calls attention to the important fact that 
in the Anomura and Macrura there is no copulatory pouch such as he had discovered 
1 I have been unable to consult the original works of these writers, and give the quotations from 
them on the authority of Brocchi and Cano. 
