Palpi

“ The male palpi are long, with large tarsi and palpal organs and a long hook on the outer side of the tarsus. They live near water, on the ground or low bushes. [Pg 88] The female carries her cocoon in her mandibles and makes a large bunch of silk in the bushes, in which the young live for some time after hatching. ”

“ With the exception of a small division, which ought probably to be referred to another genus, they are natives of the old world, principally of the western coasts of Africa. The palpi are slender and nearly cylindrical, the terminal joint minute, forming a kind of nipple on the apex of the second which is very long; antennæ rather short and terminating somewhat suddenly in a club; anterior tarsus spatulate, scarcely toothed at the extremity; internal edge of the inferior wings not embracing the abdomen. ”

“ Palpi grey. Breast and abdomen brown. Anterior wings next the body yellowish brown, but towards the tips inclining to grey; nerves black; the disk white, with a round black spot near the body, and another of a smaller size below it. The middle of the posterior wings is white, surrounded with brown, that part along the lower edges being darkest; next the body are five distinct black round spots, and an irregular shaped one at the middle of the upper edge ”

“ The crest close over the [Pg 41] supra-œsophageal cavity, is generally furnished with small, often bead-like teeth. The Palpi are small, their apices never actually touching each other; they are more or less blunt, not differing much in shape in the different genera (Pl. X, figs. 6 to 8) , and clothed with spines. They are not capable of movement; their function seems to be to prevent prey, brought by the cirri, escaping over the labrum; I infer this from finding in Anelasma and in the male of Ibla, which have the cirri functionless, that the palpi are rudimentary. ”

“ As in Papilio the antennæ form an elongate club, having the extremity slightly curved upwards, the palpi are longer than in the genus just named, but they never rise above the forehead. The prothorax is much developed anteriorly, and forms a pretty distinct neck. The abdomen is long and robust, that of the male deeply grooved on the under side, and provided at the anal extremity with two large rounded valves. The wings are large, of a strong texture, and furnished with salient nervures; the anterior pair elongate; the posterior with wide shallow indentations, and never prolonged into a tail. ”

“ Palpi externally white, but internally black. Tongue curled up. Breast black, the sides being blue. Legs black. Thighs white within, and blue without. Abdomen, next the thorax, white; the remainder being black, with four white spots on each side; that next the anus being the smallest. Wings as on the upper side; except the anterior, which have a yellowish border running along the posterior edges. The extremity of the body of the male is furnished with a villose tail, as long as the body. ”

“ The Mouth is placed far from the adductor muscle.
Labrum, with its basal margin much produced; upper part highly bullate, forming a rounded projection equalling the longitudinal axis of the rest of the mouth; crest without any teeth.
Palpi, triangular, with the two margins, thickly clothed with bristles; on each side of the mouth, near where the palpi are united to the mandibles, there is a slight, orbicular, shield-like swelling.
The Mandibles (Pl. X, fig. 3) have nine or ten very unequal teeth, with the inferior angle rather broad and pectinated ”

“ What strikes me more than anything else is the absolute inertia of the fangs, which I tickle with a straw without succeeding in rousing them from their torpor. The palpi, on the other hand, their immediate neighbours, wave at the least touch. The Epeira is placed in safety, in a flask, and undergoes a fresh examination a week later. Irritability has in part returned. Under the stimulus of a straw, I see her legs move a little, especially the lower joints, the tibiae and tarsi. The palpi are even more irritable and mobile. ”

“ Mouth.—The palpi are furnished with a row, extending along the whole basal exterior margin, of very long upwardly pointing spines; on their upper edges there is a brush of small spines. The edge of the labrum is clothed with extremely fine spines, and is furnished with a few minute teeth. The mandibles have four teeth, and the lower end is broadly rounded and coarsely spinose: the second and third teeth are double at their points, and between the second and third, and again between the third and fourth, there is a small intermediate tooth. ”

“ Looking to the animal’s body, in the Balaninæ, the labrum is always notched in the middle, and is never swollen or bullate, for the outer and inner folds of membrane of which it is composed lie close together. The palpi are large, so that their tips almost touch each other. The mandibles, generally, have their lower main teeth laterally double. ”

“ The palpi have the second joint thick, the third joint gradually tapering and lightly clothed with scales. The fore wings are rounded at the apex, and have the outer and inner margins somewhat excavated. The outer margin of the hind wings is sinuous, produced at the end of the third median nervule. The cell of the hind wing is open. The subcostal nervules in the fore wing are remarkable because of the tendency of the first and second to fuse with the costal vein. The prothoracic feet of the male are small and weak; of the female, stronger. ”

“ If he comes close she dashes at him, and he quickly retreats. Sometimes he becomes bolder, and when within an inch, pauses, with the first legs outstretched before him, not raised as is common in other species; the palpi also are held stiffly out in front with the points together. Again she drives him off, and so the play continues. Now the male grows excited as he approaches her, and while still several inches away, whirls completely around and around; pausing, he runs closer and begins to make his abdomen quiver as he stands on tiptoe in front of her. ”

“ Nigricanti-viridis, palpis antennis pedibusque nigris, alis cinereis, alulis obscure cinereis, halteribus apice pallidis.
Male. Blackish-green, shining; eyes contiguous; palpi and antennæ black, the latter nearly reaching the epistoma; abdomen a little broader and shorter than the thorax; legs black; wings cinereous; veins black; præbrachial vein forming a gentle curve at its flexure, straight from thence to its tip; discal transverse vein straight, parted by more than half its length from the border, and hardly more than its length from the flexure of the præbrachial; alulæ dark cinereous ”

“ Palpi long, straight, porrected, shortly rough-scaled, terminal joint short. Antennæ in male simple, stout, gradually dilated from base to near apex, apex attenuated. Abdomen in male very excessively elongate. Hind-wings in male deeply excised near dorsum, dorsal lobe folded into a long pocket, fringed with hairs. Fore-wings with vein 6 rising out of 9, 7 from or above angle of areole, 10 anastomosing moderately with 9, 11 anastomosing moderately with 10, 12 free. Hind-wings with veins 6 and 7 separate, 8 free, united with 7 before transverse vein by an oblique bar. ”

“ But though the rigid covering may often produce comparative insensibility, or merely give indication of the presence of bodies, this sense is always so concentrated in certain organs as to intimate the properties of material objects, such as form, size, density, &c. The organs in which it is most perfect are undoubtedly the palpi. ”

“ The length of the body from the front of the cephalo-thorax to the end of the last post-abdominal segment was fifty-two millimetres—a little more than two inches; the length of the tail was fifty millimetres, thus making the total length about four inches. The width of the abdomen in its widest part, near the center, was thirteen millimetres, or approximately half an inch. The claw-bearing palpi, or "feelers," which are large and very powerful, have an extreme expansion of fifty-eight millimetres, nearly two and a half inches. ”

“ Hind part of the male abdomen without lobes. Live in ears of dogs and cats. Otodectes Canestr.
O. cynotis Hering (fig. 150 e) has been taken in the United States.
ee. Palpi usually of four or five segments, free; rarely with ventral suckers near genital or anal openings; eyes often present; tarsi never end in suckers; body usually divided into cephalothorax and abdomen; rod-like epimera rarely visible; adults rarely parasitic.
f. Last segment of the palpi never forms a thumb to the preceding segment; palpi simple, or rarely formed to hold prey; body with but few hairs. EUPODOIDEA.
g. ”

“ This is the lower lip with its two palpi. It is flanked right and left by two other parts, likewise fleshy, adhering closely to the lip and bearing at the tip a rudimentary palp consisting of two or three very tiny joints. These two parts are the future jaws. All this apparatus of lips and jaws is completely immobile and in a rudimentary condition which is difficult to describe. They are budding organs, still faint and embryonic. The labrum and the complicated lamina formed by the lip and the jaws leave between them a narrow slit in which the mandibles work. ”

“ When egg-laying is about to take place, the head is further depressed till it rests close against the under side of the body. In this attitude the end of the rostrum actually touches the genital orifice, the palpi being at the same time widely opened out. Behind the head and from beneath the shield, at what for the purposes of explanation may be described as the back of the neck, a white, perfectly transparent, delicate gelatinous membrane is brought down through inflation, either with air or with a transparent fluid, above the head, which it temporarily conceals. ”