BEHAVIOR OF INSECTS OTHER THAN ANTS 409 



treats, and side- wheeling" (attids). According to Montgomery, 

 the courtship of the male is not a conscious effort of the male 

 to display his peculiar beauty before the female, but the result 

 of fear mingled with sexual desire. Unlike the Peckhams, 

 he thinks the female is attracted by maleness alone and not 

 by beauty, and that she probably yields to the more agile 

 male. The immediate effect of the courtship on the female 

 is the stimulation of her sexual desire by the recognition of the 

 male. There is no arousing of the esthetic sense first and the 

 sexual desire afterwards. The female accepts the first male 

 who courts her and makes himself recognized as a male at the 

 time when she is physiologically desirous. The case of Astia, 

 where the Peckhams proved that the female always accepts the 

 most ornamental of the males present, he would explain as 

 follows: The most ornamental male is selected by the female 

 because he is more unlike her and hence more quickly recog- 

 nized as a male. Battles to the death do not occur among 

 male spiders; but they engage in feeble conflicts, both in the 

 presence of the female and in her absence. He does not agree 

 with the Peckhams that these fights are for the purpose of 

 showing oft' before the female. He asserts, " Sexual selection 

 in the meaning of Darwin, and in opposition to the view of the 

 Peckhams, has probably played no part in the evolution of 

 secondary sexual characters." The Peckhams claim that the 

 female spider selects the more ornamental male because to her 

 he is more beautiful than his rival : Montgomery claims that 

 the female spider selects the more ornamental male because 

 he is more conspicuous than his rival. Montgomery's explan- 

 ation eliminates the esthetic sense; but it does not militate 

 against the hypothesis of sexual selection. Darwin writes*: 

 " When males and females of an animal have the same general 

 habits of life, but differ in structure, color, or ornament, such 

 differences have been mainly caused by sexual selection; that 

 is, by individual males having had, in successive generations, 

 some slight advantage over other males, in their weapons, 

 means of defense, or charms, which they have transmitted to 

 their male offspring alone." If the conspicuousness of the 

 ornamentation caused the male spider to be selected by the 



♦Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. Appleton, 1899, vol. I., p. 110. 



