PEDAL NOSK I\ IRAr-lX )( »R SIMPICKS. 339 



If the female be situated four or five inches away from tlie 

 eourtintj male when lirst introduced to her box, he may slowly 

 wend his way towards her. liolding his i)ali)s forwards in the 

 air. One receives the im])ression that he does not see her, but 

 is ;L,anded more or less accurately to her neio^hbourhood throujj^h 

 stimuli received on his tirst pair of legs. Still, (mi several occa- 

 sions the ver\- erratic movements of the male led me to doubt 

 if he was guided to am- ai)i)reciable extent hv odours emitted 

 from tlie female. Presumabl\- this would be determined largely 

 by tile sexual ccMidition of the female which, of course, cannot' 

 ])e ascertained by external examination. The behaviour of 

 the male always seemed to indicate his knowledge of the pre- 

 sence of the female, but not of the precise direction in which 

 -he was to be found. 



To throw light on this point I removed several females 

 from their box, placing them on a small cardboard trav some 

 distance away, and after a while dropped therein fom- adult 

 males (|uite near to but n(^t actually touching the females. None 

 of these males made the slightest attempt to court the females 

 nor did they shew any signs of alarm or emotion. On the other 

 hand, whenever a male was dropped into the untenanted box 

 which had formerly contained the females, he at once took up 

 ;'. courting attitude. The females were removed from their box 

 one Thursday, and on the following Sunday males which were 

 placed therein commenced to court immediately. Tn all proba- 

 bility this sensitiveness is not alfactory, but is connected with 

 the ])resence of web spun by the female over the surface of the 

 ground. Females kept in a box in which they do not burrow 

 will crawl about, slowly trailing after them a loose bundle of 

 very fine silky threads of uniform thickness, and thus the ser- 

 face of the ground becomes sparsely covered with delicate silk. 



The paired tarsal claws of the male differ from those of 

 the female in being pronouncedly pectinate, and during life are 

 held widely separated. A courting male, whi-lst slowly waving 

 liis first pair of legs upwards and downwards, may often scratch 

 strongly on the ground with the claws of his first two pairs of 

 legs, so strongly that on hard ground the sound is clearly audible 

 to an observer. 1'hinking it i)ossible that these tarsal claws 

 might be intimatel\- concerned in the perception of the female 

 web. I cai-efullv cut oft', or at all events seriously hroke up all 

 the claws on all the legs of three specimens without injuring 

 the tarsi. On the following night I introduced these specimens 

 to the box formerly occupied by females, with the result that 

 two of them ])n)m])tly took ui> the characteristic courting atti- 

 tude. 



I may add that males when walking or running do not emit 

 threads of silk ; no trace of web was found on the surface of 

 the ground, wdiere twelve males had resided for several weeks. 

 However, during courtship, when slowly approaching the female, 

 a male was observed to be trailing a cord of silk from his spm- 

 ners. 



