USE OF THE PALPAL ORGANS AND EPIGYNUM.
When the reproductive cells of the male spider are mature, he discharges the liquid containing them on a little web spun for the purpose; dips his palpal organs into it, and in a few moments takes up the whole, it is supposed, into the little sacs, [Figs. 47], [48], inside the bulb; then he seeks the female, and inserts the palpal organs into her epigynum. The soft part at the base of the organ swells up, and presses in the discharge-tube, and probably forces out the contents of the bulb into the spermathecæ, E, E, from which it escapes, in course of time, by the tubes, H, H, into the oviduct, and fertilizes the eggs about the time they are laid.
Fig. 52.
One palpal organ is usually inserted at a time, and, after a while, taken out, and replaced by the other; this change being repeated many times by the same spider. Among the Lycosidæ, [Fig. 10], the male leaps on the back of the female, and is carried about by her, [Fig. 52]. He reaches down at the side of her abdomen, and inserts his palpi in the epigynum underneath. In Linyphia and Theridion the male and female live peaceably together for a long time in the same web. The male reaches from in front under the female, [Fig. 53], and inserts his palpal organs, one after the other, for hours together. In Agalena the male is the stronger of the two sexes. He takes the female in his mandibles, and lays her on one side, [Fig. 54], and inserts one of his palpi. After a time, he rises on tiptoe, turns her around and over, so that she lies on the other side, with her head in the opposite direction, and inserts the other palpus. The female lies as though dead. In Nephila and Argiope, where the male is very small, he stands on the upper edge of the web while the female is in her usual position in the centre. After feeling the web with his feet for some time, he runs down to the centre so lightly as not to disturb the female, and climbs about over her body for some minutes, in an apparently aimless way. She takes no notice of him at first; but at length, especially if he approach the under side of her abdomen, she turns, and snaps at him with her jaws. He is usually nimble enough to dodge between her legs, and drop out of the web, and, after a while, climbs up to the top, and begins over again. In these encounters the males are often injured; they frequently lose some of their legs: and I have seen one, that had only four out of his eight left, still standing up to his work.
Fig. 53.
Fig. 54.
Fig. 55.
At length the male succeeds in getting under the female’s abdomen, and inserting his palpi into the epigynum. [Fig. 55] shows the female hanging in the web, with the male at a, with his legs grasped around her abdomen.
The habits of these spiders furnish the grounds for the popular story, that female spiders regularly eat the males. No doubt it occasionally happens, where the female is the larger of the two; but in many species they live together for some time in the same web, or in a nest spun for the purpose; in some cases, before the female has reached the adult state.