SPIDERS 173 



male who is usually smaller and weaker than his intended mate. 

 Indeed, he will almost certainly be devoured unless he succeeds in 

 allaying temporarily the carnivorous instincts of the female, and 

 this he must do before he ventures within reach of her rapacious 

 jaws. Bristowe (1941,* etc.) has emphasised that it is of the utmost 

 importance to the male to establish his identity so that he is not 

 treated like an insect victim, and thereafter courtship must pro- 

 ceed until the female has been stimulated to a state in which her 

 sexual instincts have been aroused so that she will permit mating to 

 take place. Consequently, whichever of the senses is the one on 

 which the species chiefly relies for the capture of its prey, is the 

 sense most employed in courtship. Male jumping spiders and 

 wolf spiders make use of visual signs, short-sighted and nocturnal 

 species of contact stimuli, web spinners use distinctive tweaks and 

 vibrations of the threads of the snare, and so on. 



The mating procedure of spiders is quite unique, for when the 

 male reaches maturity he weaves a small pad of silk on which a 

 drop of sperm is deposited and this is sucked up by the specially 

 modified 'pedipalps' or hands which in due course are inserted 

 into the vagina of the female. Each species has a palp with its own 

 distinctive shape, a diagnostic character essential for accurate 

 identification. 



Courtship is a subject of great interest and importance and the 

 literature on the subject is immense. 



In Theraphosid spiders such as Dugesiella hentzi, when a rest- 

 lessly wandering male happens to touch with his legs some part of 

 the body or leg of a female, he at once stops short and begins to 

 strike it simultaneously and violently with his anterior and some- 

 times with all four front feet. This continuous beating with the 

 front legs upon the body or legs of the female constitutes the first 

 step in courtship. At first the female assumes an attitude of defence, 

 but after a while she rises high on her hind legs while still holding 

 up her front legs. Finally she opens her fangs and the male catches 

 them with the hooks on his front legs. He now forcibly pushes back 

 the cephalothorax of the female, at the same time drumming on 

 her sternum with the patellas of his pedipalps. Mating lasts only a 

 minute or two, after which the two sexes part, the female making 

 no attempt to attack (Petrunkevitch, 1911). 



