COLOURS PRODUCED BY COURTSHIP 297 



purpose. The comparison, which is, I beheve, now 

 made public for the first time, appears to yield a very 

 strong support to the views of Mr. Darwin on this 

 question. 



Sexual Selection tested by the courtship of Spiders 



Mr. Wallace quotes an opinion against Sexual 

 Selection which is certainly of the greatest w^eight, 

 that of our eminent authority on spiders, the Eev. 0. 

 Pickard-Cambridge.^ I am therefore especially pleased 

 to be able to refer to an American paper which has 

 appeared in the present year (1889), describing the 

 most careful observations upon the courtship of 

 spiders.2 As the result of their investigations, especi- 

 ally directed towards the solution of this very question 

 of the existence of Sexual Selection, the authors come 

 to a conclusion which is the opposite of that drawn 

 by Mr. Pickard-Cambridge. 



The spiders of the family Attidce, which were the 

 subjects of investigation, appear to be very suitable for 

 the purpose, because courtship does not appear to be 

 checked or modified by confinement, as it is in so 

 many Lepidoptera. The amount of labour spent in 

 this admirable piece of work may be gathered from 



* Darwinism, pp. 296-97. 



2 Occasional Papers of the Natural History Society of Wis- 

 consin, vol. i. 1889, Milwaukee. Observations on Sexual Selection 

 in Spiders of the Family Attidce, by George W. and Elizabeth G. 

 Peckham. 



