110 THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE CHAP, vi 



lowers her head and raises her body, so that it is almost vertical. 

 Both draw nearer, she moves slowly under him, he crawling over 

 her head, and the mating is accomplished." The males are quarrel- 

 some and fight with one another ; but after watching " hundreds 

 of seemingly terrible battles " between the males of twelve different 

 species, the observers were forced to the conclusion that " they are 

 all sham affairs gotten up for the purpose of displaying before the 

 females, who commonly stand by interested spectators." "It 

 seemed cruel sport at first to put eight or ten males (of Dendry- 

 phantes capitatus) into a box to see them fight, but it was soon 

 apparent that they were very prudent little fellows, and were 

 fully conscious that ' he who fights and runs away will live to 

 fight another day.' In fact, after two weeks of hard fighting we 

 were unable to discover one wounded warrior. . . . The single 

 female (of Phidippus morsitans] that we caught during the summer 

 was a savage monster. The two males that we provided for her 

 had offered her only the merest civilities when she leaped upon 

 them and killed them." " The female of Dendryphantes eleyans 

 is much larger than the male, and her loveliness is accompanied by 

 an extreme irritability of temper, which the male seems to regard 

 as a constant menace to his safety ; but his eagerness being great, 

 and his manners devoted and tender, he gradually overcomes her 

 opposition. Her change of mood is only brought about after 

 much patient courting on his part." In other species (Philceus 

 militaris) the males take possession of young females and keep 

 guard over them until they become mature. We sometimes hear 

 of courtship by telephone. In the Epeiridae spiders " it seems to 

 be carried on, to some extent at least, by a vibration of web lines," 

 as M'Cook and Termeyer have also observed. 



Surely it is a long gamut this, from a mammal's clamant 

 call and forcible wooing, or from the sweet persuasive- 

 ness of our singing birds, and the fluttering displays of 

 others, to the trembling of a thread in the web of a spider. 

 But, however varied be the pitch of the song and the 

 form of the dance, all are expressions of love. 



Mates are also attracted to one another by odours. 

 These are best known in mammals (e.g. beaver and civet) 

 and in reptiles ; they predominate in the males, and at 

 the breeding season. They usually proceed from skin 

 glands ; but we understand little about them. They 

 serve as incense or as stimulant, but perhaps this useful- 

 ness is secondary. The zoologist Jaeger regards the 

 odoriferous substances in plants and animals as charac- 

 teristic of and essentially associated with each life ; but 

 without going so far we may recognise that in the general 



