1903.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 125 



with his first two pairs of legs he parried with hers for more than a 

 minute, evidently trying to grasp them; then he sidled off. and when 

 he returned she grasped him with her legs, and finally she gripped 

 fiercely at him. 



The descriptions here given may seem unnecessarily full, but they 

 are given to show the variations in the mode of copulation, a greater 

 variation than I have observed in any other species. In one copula- 

 tion only one of the palpi was used; in the others both palpi, but in 

 irregular alternation. The earlier palpal applications in each copula- 

 tion are mainly ineffective, the palpal organ not being thoroughly in- 

 serted, and a considerable part of the time is occupied in working the 

 palpal organ through the chelicera. Peculiar for this species is the 

 fact of the male sometimes interrupting the copulation by leaving the 

 female for a minute, then returning and resuming it. The longest 

 period of copulation was 4S minutes. 



There is no coiu'tship on the part of the male, nor any instigation 

 by the female. When the male is first put into the cage of a female, 

 even though he faces her, he does not seem to recognize her as such 

 by sight, and pays no attention to her until he touches her, when he 

 quickly gets upon her back. My custom was to push him up to the 

 female. He is considerably the smaller and the more active; and 

 when upon her back he is secure from her legs, and is not easily dis- 

 lodged by her. He mounts upon her from behind, out of reach of her 

 long and dangerous fore-legs, and when he is mounted she immediately 

 becomes still. His smaller size and greater activity enable him to 

 accomplish his purpose, quickness overcoming strength. Seeing the 

 male upon the female, one involuntarily thinks of the Old Man of the 

 Sea, who cannot be dislodged. 



Cocooning. — For some two weeks before making her cocoon 9 No. 4 

 spun a network of web-lines across her cage, so dense that she frequently 

 became entangled in them, and I was obliged to clean them away. 

 But this is probably not to be considered a web-making, but simply 

 the habit this species has of drawing out a thread behind when walking, 

 a "drop-line" by which it can find its way back. On July 5, however, 

 she made quite a dense sheet of silk in a corner of the cage, completely 

 enclosing her and inclined at an angle from the floor to the walls. 

 Within this she made, in the early morning of July 9, her only cocoon; 

 this cocoon was inclined at an angle to the floor, fastened to the scaffold- 

 ing, flattened, unevenly circular in outline, and white in color. It did 

 not hatch. 



9 No. 109 built on July 5, at the angle of two walls of her cage with 



