COLOR AND THE BEHAVIOR OF ARTHROPODS 



97 



The Misumenas used in the experiments just described were 

 individuals which had been kept in the laboratory for a day or 

 two and it was thought that animals freshly collected might 

 show different results if tested at once in the field. Accordingly, 

 the "yellow -white" box was carried out on several collecting 



TABLE VIII 



Showing the Direction of Movement Taken by Newly Collected Spiders 

 Tested in the Field in a Box Colored Half White and Half Yellow. 

 "0" Indicates no Definite Movement with Respect to Either Color. 



trips and the spiders were tested as they were taken from the 

 net. The results of these tests are given in Table VIII. Again 

 there is absolutely no evidence that Misumena shows a positive 

 reaction toward a background colored like itself. 



Experiment 3. This experiment was carried out on a table 

 before an open window. Misumenas were allowed to crawl 

 separately from a vial to the surface of the table at a point 

 midway between two black screens ; the vial was then removed. 

 The screens were inclined at an angle of about 7 5 degrees to the 

 surface of the table and a cluster of flowers was fastened to each 

 in such a way that it was exactly 9.4 centimeters from the spider. 

 The two flower clusters were as nearly the same size as possible ; 

 one was goldenrod {Solidago sp?) like that from which the yellow 

 spiders had been collected, the other was milfoil {Achillea Mille- 

 folium) from which some of the white spiders had been secured. 

 Each spider as it reached the surface of the table was, there- 

 fore, the same distance from a white and a yellow flower cluster. 

 A total of fifty tests were recorded from five yellow Misumenas, 

 ten from each individual. In four cases spiders went to the 

 white flower, in five to the yellow flower; the other forty-one 

 reactions were without apparent reference to the flowers. Several 

 times spiders walked up one of the screens and passed within 

 a centimeter of a flower without swerving. 



Experiment 4. On September 15, 1910, thirty-two freshly 

 collected spiders, sixteen yellow and sixteen white, were tested 



