1 16 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



if a victim falls on the boundary-line, a struggle ensues, tf the individual 

 who claims the food is much molested by its neighbour, it will treat the 

 neighbour as a second victim. The mothei will eat the young ones if 

 they stray on to her web. 



The mortality of the young is enormous during the first three weeks. 

 This is not due to f ractricidal competition, but the cause is unknown. 

 Some mortality is connected with moulting. There are five moults 

 before the adult size' is attained. When moulting is about to occur the 

 spider remains immobile, does not spin, and does not eat. The cuticle 

 cracks, the spider swings gently, and draws out its long limbs from their 

 husks. 



The young males make good webs ; the adults eat less and make 

 irregular webs. The adult life of the male is short -on an average two 

 or three weeks. In the adults reared from eight cocoons there were 

 twenty-nine males to fifty-two females. The pairing period is short. 

 The females seem to choose. A male rejected one day was accepted 

 next day by another female. The female may kill the male, winding 

 silk around' him and sucking his body, as is well known in some other 

 spiders. The intricate sex-behaviour is carefully described. 



Antarctic Pycnogonids.* — T. V. Hodgson makes a preliminary 



report on the Pycnogonida collected by the ' Gauss ' in the Antarctic 

 regions. The collection includes three new genera and twenty new 

 species. In Notoendeis g.n., near Colossendeis, the body is perfectly seg- 

 mented, with short and distinctly separated lateral processes, and with 

 well-developed eyes ; the proboscis is very large ; the palps are nine- 

 jointed, and the oviger is ten-jointed, with a terminal claw. In Austro- 

 pallene g.n., there are large and stout cephalic spurs ; the body is robust 

 or slender, with distinct segmentation, with lateral processes close 

 together or widely separated ; the eyes are well-developed : the proboscis 

 is tapering with or without a setose wreath ; the cheliferi are stout, the 

 chelaj short and powerful ; there is no trace of palps : the ovigers are 

 ten-jointed, without a terminal claw ; there is a distal swelling on the 

 fifth joint of the male ; there are no auxiliary claws. In Austrothea 

 g.n., are included Ammotfiea-tike species with a body not discoid in any 

 sense, and without the transverse ridges characteristic of the genus 

 Ammothea in the strict sense. The legs are comparatively long. 



e. Crustacea. 



Crustaceans from Mauritius.! — E. L. Bouvier calls attention to 

 some interesting Crustaceans collected by M. Paul Carie on the coast of 

 .Mauritius. Thus there is the very rare Stomatopod Gomdactylus {Pro- 

 tosquilla) guerini White, of which only two specimens have been pre- 

 viously recorded. The Decapod Ortmarmia alluaudi Bouvier has a 

 mutation-form, Atya serrata Spence Bate, and there is probably a 

 similar relation between Ortmannia edwardsi and Caridina richtersi. 

 The small Palinurid, Palinarellus wieneclri de Man, has only been seen 



* Ann. Nat. Hist., xv. (1915) pp. 141-9. 



t Comptes Rendus, clix. (1914) pp. 698-704. 



