1903.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 65 



but other Lj^cosicls without such armature make similar movements. 

 That sight pays a considerable part in the mating of this, as of other 

 Lycosids, is shown by the actions at a distance. But apparently the 

 first recognition of sex is by touch. 



Sperm-induction. — c? No. 151 concluded his copulation wdth 9 No. 

 165 at 6.17 P.M., June 5. At 7 P.M. of the same day he cleaned him- 

 self, then went to one corner of the cage and commenced to brush his 

 spinnerets over the floor. He formed a roughly-made small sheet of web 

 of triangular outline, one side of it on the floor, one on the wall of the 

 cage, and the third (the longest) free in the air from the wall to the 

 floor. With his chelicera he then tore away some of the silk on this 

 free edge, making it smoother there, doing so from 7.10 to 7.25. Next 

 he placed himself above the sheet as follows : The ventral surface of 

 his cephalothorax upon the upper free edge of the sheeting so that his 

 palpi hung down over this edge, his abdomen slightly elevated above 

 and parallel to the sheet, the legs of his right side against the vertical 

 glass wall, those of his left upon the floor. At 7.28 a small yellowish 

 drop of sperm, its diameter not greater than that of one of his meta- 

 tarsi, fell from his genital aperture on the superor surface of the sheet 

 at about its middle point. He then reached his palpi downward and 

 backward, below the sheet, and applied the concave portion of the 

 palpal organ of each against that part of the sheet which carried the 

 drop of sperm. Each palpus was thus rubbed against the lower surface 

 of this drop several times, then withdrawn and slowly shaken in the 

 air, while the other was similarly applied to the drop. This continued 

 until 7.35, by which time all of the sperm had been taken into the 

 palpal organs. He remained perfectly quiet in the same position up 

 to 7.53, depositing no more sperm, and then walked about the cage. 



Cocooning. — The cocoon is a nearly globular bag, and the mode of 

 making it was seen several times, of w^hich these will serve as examples : 



(1) 9 No. 231 was observed on June 28, at 7.30 P.M., spinning a cir- 

 cular disk of silk {" base" of the cocoon) on the floor, close to the edge of 

 a nearly evaporated drop of water. This base's diameter did not quite 

 equal the length of her body. She was then brushing her spinnerets 

 from side to side, and rotating her body at intervals. At first she 

 made frequent pauses, but fewer as she proceeded, and gradually 

 enlarged the diameter of the base until it quite equaled the length of 

 her body. This continued until 8.15, when she changed the method 

 of spinning, and started to build a silken wall upon the margin of the 

 base ; this she accomplished by elevating her spinnerets high in the air 

 after each stroke, then applying them again close to the first point of 

 5 



