394 
Biolofiy of Phtliiriis pubis 
function in copulation; lie seizes the hair or hairs, to which the female 
likewise clings, with his two hind leg-pairs thereby gaining the necessary 
support which enables him to keep the female in position, her mouth- 
parts being the while fixed in the skin. 
The male we raised tended to wander further afield than the two 
females, which suggests that he wandered in search of females; he 
fertilized the only two to which he had access, one of these being maimed 
in two legs. The latter was killed and dissected six days after ecdysis, 
and the neck of her flask-shaped receptaculum seminis was found packed 
and dilated with a mass of spermatozoa. 
0-b mm. , 
^ H 
Fig. 4. Phthirus pubis $, ventral aspect of posterior end of abdomen showing {Gon) 
the gonojjods converging posteriorly in the median line; slightly protruding behind 
them is the postero-dorsal margin of the body. Between the gonopods is (H) a 
spoondike hollow bearing a few short spines. The hair, during oviposition, shdes in 
the hollow between the gonopods. Compare the structures with those of Pediculus 
(p. 120, Fig. 4). 
Oviposition. 
The process of egg-laying has not actually been observed by me. 
The female Phthirus (see Fig. 4) possesses gonopods of a different form 
to those of Pediculus-, they consist of two short, broad-based processes 
bearing hairs posteriorly and they cannot surround a hair so completely 
as do the gonopods of the other species. These structures are figured 
by Landois (1864 a, pi. Ill, fig. 5, postero-ventral part of abdomen of 
female) but their function has not hitherto been understood. Were it 
not that I had demonstrated the use of the corresponding, more highly 
developed structures in Pediculus, it would be difficult to explain the 
purpose of the somewhat reduced organs in Phthirus. 
