﻿JAMBUNATHAN] LIFE HISTORY OF SOCIAL SPIDER 3°9 



sonic at the body, some near the tail-end, others sucking their repast 

 from the limbs of the victim. To test their intelligence I once threw 

 a big ant into a web. A,s the ant struggled a spider issued from the 

 nest in the direction of the prey but found the creature too defiant 

 to be easily pulled home. The spider caught one leg many a time, 

 and many a time it ran for life, fearing the ant's bite. In a moment, 

 another spider came to its aid, but, curiously enough, instead of 

 catching hold of the ant, began to pull the first spider by its abdomen, 

 until other spiders came to the rescue and the victim was carried 

 away by their joint labor, to the common nest. 



1 f such an ant were thrown into the web of an Epeiridse, the 

 victim, however big and ferocious, would be carefully bound by 

 threads and thus secured. The social spiders know how to drag, 

 pull and bite, but have never learned the finer and safer method of 

 binding and securing their prey. Perhaps the extremely sticky 

 character of the webs lessens the necessity for them to develop these 

 finer methods. 



In the foregoing paragraphs, two facts have been clearly recorded 

 about the habits of this group of spiders, (i) the joint action and 

 willing cooperation of a number of them to achieve a definite end, 

 I 2) the partaking by any and every spider that happens to get near 

 it of the meal brought by one or more, the captors showing appar- 

 ently no resentment. These two facts together with what has been 

 noted in connection with web-building point to the conclusion that 

 the spiders we are considering, certainly exhibit a form of social 

 living which is, so far as I am aware, rarely met with in the spider 

 world. 



It has been noted by every arachnologist that the relation between 

 the sexes in this group is something unique in spider communities. 

 The male is generally a dwarfed individual, and is able to carry on 

 his life's task only by agility and cunning. Such antagonism exists 

 between the sexes, that a male seldom returns from courtship without 

 losing a leg or two. It is a struggle which often imperils even his 

 life. In some families, as in the Epeirida?, this struggle has been so 

 severe and lengthened that there have come to be certain profound 

 modifications in the mental as well as the bodily structure of the 

 males, they being often dirty colored and dwarfed individuals, and 

 hardly recognizable as spiders at all. In addition to this the male 

 is sometimes caught and devoured by his savage consort. 



But the picture is not all dark — all tragic. , There are some fam- 

 ilies that exhibit a more genial relationship. In the Attidse, Lyco- 

 sida?, Thomisidas, Phalangida?, Tetragnathidre. and Mygalidae, the 



