universally, the case among spiders, the female is the head of the family. In fact, so scarce are the males that for three years I never found one among more than a hundred specimens. This, however, is not absolute proof of their much smaller number, for they are less in size and darker in color, and, like the males of the "silk-spider of
Fig. 2.—At the left a female Hyptiotes, enlarged about eight diameters. The legs are marked 1, 2, 3, 4, in order from before backward. In the central figure is shown the front part of the spider (the cephalo-thorax), still more enlarged, so as to display the eight eyes arranged so as to form two crescents with their convexities opposed thus ≈. At the right is a greatly magnified feathered bristle from the upper surface of the cephalothorax.
South Carolina" (Nephila plumipes), they make no nets, but seem to get a precarious living by hanging on to that of some female. Their masculine nature is seen in the structure of the "palp" or feeler, which, instead of tapering to a blunt point, as in the female, is greatly enlarged, its last segment presenting the remarkably complex structure seen in Fig. 3.[1]
Fig. 3.—Terminal joints of the palp or feeler of the male Hyptiotes Americanus, much enlarged. (Drawn from Nature, by Prof. W. S. Barnard.)
- ↑ These modified palpi are undoubtedly connected with the reproductive function. Others besides myself have seen them (with other and larger species) applied to the vulva of the female during an evident copulation; but all do not assent to the generally-received opinion, that they are merely intromittent organs, which have first received the spermatic fluid from the testicular orifice upon the ventral surface of the abdomen. (For a note upon the subject, by Mr. Gedge, with references, see Journal of Anatomy and Physiology. 1867, vol. i., p. 371.)
