June, 1905.] Packard: Color in a Flower Spider. 89 



Afterwards at Intervale, N. H., on September 8 and 9, I found the 

 yellow ones on Solidago canadensis, the most common species, and 

 on S. rugosa, less common there, although this is the most common. 

 Quite small yellow ones occurred, and at Providence several large 

 deep uniform yellow ones. 



Afterwards, on September 16, at Chocorua, five or six yellow M. 

 vatia occurred on the golden rod (S. rugosa), one young M. vatia was 

 yellow, the other greenish-yellow, all the young being distinctly yel- 

 low ; one large example of a deep yellow. Not a single white half- 

 grown or fully grown was seen. 



September 17 in collecting I had the same experience as on the 

 previous day : I found several young M. vatia which were yellowish 

 and two large fully grown deep yellow ones, but no white ones oc- 

 curred. On the red flowers of Canna occurred one full grown M. 

 vatia with greenish cephalothorax and legs and a white abdomen. I 

 beat the heads of a patch of life everlasting, comprising over 100 or 

 200 flowers, without finding a single spider on them, and none oc- 

 curred in the few white and purple asters examined. 



On reaching Providence, after considerable search I found but a 

 single M. vatia on the golden rod, on the other hand M. asperata 

 was the common species here, during the last week of September. 

 Although the general effect is reddish, the ground color is pale yel- 

 lowish ; though in large ones the ground hue is often reddish. One 

 yellowish one occurred on a small sunflower. It molted September 

 26. By the 4th or 5th of October, very few were seen, as they had 

 apparently left the plants and gone into winter quarters. 



At Chocorua yellow M. asperata occurred on the sunflower and 

 also on a yellow gilly flower, or a similar plant. 



Occurrence of a white M. vatia on a white golden rod. — At Inter- 

 vale, N. H., I found two white 9 M. vatia on the pale whitish golden 

 rod (S. bicolor), and as stated above I found a white 9 on tne same 

 species of golden rod at Providence. It was marked with red on the 

 sides, as usual. 



Occurrence of M. vatia on the sunflower. — At Intervale I found a 

 large deep yellow spider of this species on the wild sunflower, Helian- 

 thus decapetalus. 



Experimental proof of change of color. — On the 9th of August I 

 enclosed two white M. vatia in a bag made of mosquito netting and 

 tied over a head of the flowers of the golden rod. On the 15 th on 



