FSYCHKl. 



NOTES ON PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE IN SPIDERS. 



BY GEORGE F. ATKINSON, COLUMBIA, S. C. 



A very interesting case of unintention- 

 al mimicry by Ai'giope riparia canie 

 to my notice a few years ago. A vil- 

 lager in western North Carolina found 

 a web of this species in his garden. He 

 was struck by the peculiar zig-zag line 

 across the web and imagined he covdd 

 read WAR ! WAR ! ! WAR ! ! ! It 

 attracted considerable attention among 

 the inhabitants of the town. A notice 

 of this was published in the village pa- 

 per and copied in several of the state 

 papers. It created considerable conster- 

 nation among the superstitious ones of 

 the inhabitants, who regarded the por- 

 tents of war with fear. It is interesting 

 to reflect how, if ignorance and su- 

 perstition belonged to our people as to 

 some of the peoples of ancient countries, 

 this incident might have given us a 

 '•'•Sacred spider," and thus afforded it 

 the protection which these gods w^ere 

 wont to receive. 



Beside the case mentioned by Hentz* 

 where Synetnosyna formica resembled 

 ants when crawling on the blades of 

 grass and corn, I ha\-e frequently no- 



*Spiders of the U. S., p. 73. 



ticed this species ( probably the same ) 

 running on the bare ground in the hot 

 sun, in roads and paths, mimicking al- 

 most to perfection certain of the smaller 

 members of the tjiiitillidae. 



Tetragnatha. frequently mimics elon- 

 gated dark blotches on grass stems, 

 I have often seen them, when frightened, 

 lea\e their w^eb and clinging to a grass 

 stem place their bodies close to the 

 stem, stretch their anterior legs above, 

 and their posterior ones below. The 

 body being dark and the legs green, the 

 spider was well protected. 



TJiomisiis celer remains principally 

 on yellow flowers, and once I found a 

 greenish variet)- of this species on gol- 

 den-rod i^Solldago)^ the flowers of 

 which, not yet open, were greenish. 



The pellets made of silk and bits of 

 leaves, and hung in a row on the web 

 oi Epeira caudata^ in many cases have 

 proportionately more or less of the dark 

 and white intermingled, according as 

 the dark and white spots on the spider 

 predominate. 



In the case of Acrosoma spiiiea^ 

 which makes an oblique web and hangs 

 on the iniderside of this, the white dor- 



