ARANEAE CHAP, 
382 ARACHNIDA 
but it was hardly to be expected that their counterpart would 
exist among spiders. Yet the antics by which male Attidae 
endeavour to attract the attention of the females afford an 
almost exact parallel. 
The following extract from the account of Professor and Mrs. 
Peckham * of their observations on Saitis pulew will make this 
abundantly clear: “When some four inches from her he stood 
still, and then began the most remarkable performances that an 
amorous male could offer to an admiring female. She eyed him 
eagerly, changing her position from time to time, so that he 
might be always in view. He, raising his whole body on one 
side by straightening out the legs, and lowering it on the other 
by folding the first two pairs of legs up and under, leaned so far 
over as to be in danger of losing his balance, which he only 
maintained by sidling rapidly towards the lowered side. 
Again and again he circles from side to side, she gazing towards 
him in a softer mood, evidently admiring the grace of his antics. 
This is repeated until we have counted a hundred and eleven 
circles made by the ardent little male. Now he approaches nearer 
and nearer, and when almost within reach whirls madly around and 
around her, she joining with him in a giddy maze. Again he falls 
back and resumes his semicircular motions, with his body tilted 
over; she, all excitement, lowers her head and raises her body so that 
it is almost vertical; both draw nearer; she moves slowly under 
him, he crawling over her head, and the mating is accomplished.” 
A similar but not exactly identical performance was gone 
through by the male of several different species, but it was note- 
worthy that the particular 
attitudes he adopted were 
always such as to display to 
the best advantage his special 
beauties, whether they con- 
sisted in crested head, fringed 
palpi and fore-legs, or iri- 
Fic. 200.—Dancing attitude of male Jeius descent abdomen. Sometimes 
mitratus. (After Peckham. ) j : 
even such exertions failed to 
captivate the female, and she would savagely attack the male, 
occasionally with fatal effect. 
' Sexual Selection in Spiders, p. 37. (Occasional Papers of the Nat. Hist. Soe. 
of Wisconsin, I., 1889.) 
