BEHAVIOR OF INSECTS OTHER THAN ANTS 407 



the jointed spines. See Montgomery under mating and nest- 

 building behavior 



4. Smell. — According to Montgomery " the sense of smell 

 is possessed by all spiders and seems to be distributed over a 

 considerable area ; but he does not think that it plays any part 

 in sex-recognition. 



MATING AND NEST-BUILDING BEHAVIOR 



Although duration of life may not be a behavior problem, 

 yet Philip Rau's paper "* contains notes on the copulation and 

 oviposition of the cecropia moth that will interest students of 

 animal behavior. The material used consisted of sixty-nine 

 cocoons, from which emerged forty-three males and twenty- 

 five females. The notes upon copulation and oviposition were 

 made upon twelve copulating pairs and four unfertilized females. 

 The insects were kept ip wire cages 11^ x 10^ x 24 inches, and 

 observations were made at intervals of from three to six hours. 

 It was found that the moth always mated at night and remained 

 ill copulo from eight to twenty-nine and a half hours. The 

 species is strictly monogamous, it being impossible to induce 

 a specimen that has once mated to remate. The male does 

 not die in copulo, but always lives much longer than its mate. 

 The female, which lays from 150 to 400 eggs, begins ovipositing 

 within twenty-four hours after mating, and spends about three 

 days in laying an average of 266.3 ^ggs. She usually dies before 

 all of her eggs have been deposited and never lives more than 

 a few days thereafter. The unfertilized females do not live 

 in a torpid condition for weeks, waiting to mate; but from the 

 first lead an active life, and, if a mate is not soon found, deposit 

 their unfertilized eggs and die; their average duration of life 

 being no more than that of those females that were fortunate 

 enough to find mates. Since the cecropia moth belongs to 

 the same family as the emperor moth and like it neither eats 

 nor drinks during its imago life, students of animal behavior 

 will be interested in the dissimilarity of behavior in the two 

 species. According to Weismann, the female emperor moth 

 lives in a state of torpor for weeks until fertilization is accom- 

 plished, and the male dies while in copulo. The male cecropia 

 moth lives for from one to two weeks after coition. Rau can- 

 not understand the value of this long post-connubial life of the 



