Macvia vittata. 6;-^3 



a Gurions manner. Frequently, he raises only one of the legs of 

 tlie first pair. runninj? all the while from side to side. As he draws 

 nearer to the female he lowers his body to the ground, and, droppiug 

 his legs also, places the two anterior pairs so that the tips touch 

 in front, the proximal joints being turned almosf at i-ight angles to 

 the body (tig. 26). Xow he glides in a semicircle betöre the female, 

 sometimes advancing, sometimes receding, until at last she accepts 

 his addresses. The uigcr form, evidently a later development, is 

 mach the more lively of the two, and vvherever the two varieties 

 were seen to compete for the same female, the black one was 

 successful. He is bolder in his manners, and we have never seen 

 him assume the prone position, as the red form did, when close to 

 the female. He always held one or both of the first legs high in 

 the air, waving them wildly to and fro, or, when the female became 

 excited, he stood perfectly motionless before her, sometimes for a 

 whole minute, seemiug to fascinate her by the power of his glance.'' 

 p. 33—34, Sexual Select. in Spiders (1889). 



I have given this description of the Peckhams in füll because 

 it is the best account of the dancing which we have in the literature. 

 My own observations on the tufted males are in entire accord with 

 the Peckhams' account, except, that among my specimens, I did not 

 notice that the tufted males were more aggressive in their attentions 

 to the females than were the gray males. With regard to the dancing 

 of the gray males, the behavior of the nine specimens, which I have 

 had under constant Observation for two weeks, is so ditferent from 

 the account given by the Peckhams that I cannot help but think 

 that some mistake has been made by them in recording their 

 observations. In all of my specimens, the prone position is the 

 first to be assumed by the male when he recognizes the female. 

 Then comes the raising of the front legs and the dancing, as 

 described above. The only exception to this were cases where the 

 female got quite close to the male before he recognized her. Then, 

 the prone position was not assumed, but the anterior pair of legs 

 were raised in the air and the dance proceeded as described. 



The present study has made it clear that the twi» types of 

 males are distinct as regards three characters and the method of 

 their love dance. The very interesting question arises, what has 

 been the origin of the tufted form since it is evidently, as the 

 Peckhams have pointed out. a later development than the gray 



