XIV MATING HABITS 381 
legs, and apparently trying to ascertain the nature of the welcome 
likely to be extended to them. If accepted, they accomplish 
their purpose by applying their palps alternately to the epigyne 
of their mate. If repulsed, they do their best to make their 
escape, and wait for a more auspicious moment. Emerton! says: 
“Tn these encounters the males are often injured; they frequently 
lose some of their legs; and I have seen one, that had only four 
out of his eight left, still standing up to his work.” 
Among the other groups of sedentary spiders the relations 
between the sexes seem to be more pacific, and there is even 
some approach to domesticity. Males and females of Linyphia 
may be found during the mating season living happily together 
in their irregular snares. The same harmony seems to exist 
among the Tube-weavers, and <Agelena labyrinthica lingers for 
days unmolested about the web of the female, though it is perhaps 
hardly correct to say that they have their home in common. 
Among the wandering spiders the male usually seeks out the 
female and leaps on her back, from which position his sperm- 
laden palps can reach their destination. This is the habit of 
the Thomisidae or Crab-spiders, and of the quick-running Wolf- 
spiders, or Lycosidae. 
The sexual relations of the Leaping-spiders, or Attidae, are so 
remarkable as to deserve a longer notice. This Family includes 
the most beautiful and highly ornamented examples of spider 
life. Their headquarters are the 
tropics, and their brilliant colour- 
ing led Wallace to speak of those 
he saw in the Malay Archipelago 
as “perfect gems of beauty.” 
Now among these spiders the 
male is almost always more highly 
decorated than the female, and 
Peckham’s observations would lead 
to the conclusion that the female 
is influenced by the display of these 
decorations in the selection of her 
mate. Fic. 199.—Male Asti vutata dancing 
before the female. (After Peckham.) 
‘The so-called “ love-dances ” of 
certain tropical birds are known to all readers of natural history, 
1 Spiders, their Structure and Habits, 1883, p. 98. 
