76 AMERICAN SPIDERS 



selection of a mate. They believed that the males were more 

 numerous and, especially in cases where there was male dimor- 

 phism, that the brighter male was preferred by the female. They 

 argued that the numerous ornamental features on the bodies of the 

 male jumping spiders were developed as a result of sexual selection. 

 They rejected A. R. Wallace's views that such epigamic characters 

 were a result of a surplus of vital energy that went with maleness: 

 because the male was more vigorous, he was more highly colored 

 and likely to be more successful in his suit with the female, and 

 thus would more surely and more often leave progeny. 



In 1910 Montgomery rose to the defense of ordinary natural 

 selection, and in a masterful essay virtually refuted the claims of 

 the Peckhams with regard to sexual selection. Montgomery be- 

 lieved that the adult male "is excited simultaneously by fear of and 

 desire for the female, and his courting motions are for the most 

 part exaggerations of ordinary motions of fear and timidity. By 

 such motions he advertises himself to the female as a male, but there 

 is no proof that he consciously seeks to arouse her eagerness by 

 esthetic display . . . there seems to be no good reason to hold that 

 the female is actuated in her choice by sensations of beauty." 6 

 Montgomery defined courtship in a more limited way than do 

 modern arachnologists, and believed that in some vagrants there was 

 none at all. However, judging from his descriptions, his interpre- 

 tation is in most cases a modern one. Commenting upon spiders 

 that have good sight, he said as follows: "What we do know is 

 that the male by his courtship, a set of motions resulting from the 

 conflicting states of sexual desire and fear, exhibits or advertises 

 himself as a male; and that the female on sight of this courtship 

 recognizes him as a male and accepts him if she be eager, or else 

 becomes gradually stimulated by watching him." 7 Montgomery 

 further believed that many secondary sexual characters in the male 

 "may be most readily explained as being conserved by simple selec- 

 tion. Peculiar male ornamentation would be selected because it 

 insured quicker sex-recognition, therefore prompter mating. The 

 male is thereby more surely accepted by the female, not selected by 

 her in the sense of Darwin. The process is much more an announce- 

 ment of sex by the male than a choice by the female, and results in 



S T. H. Montgomery, "The Significance of the Courtship and Secondary 

 Sexual Characters of Araneads," The American Naturalist, Vol. XLIV (1910), 

 pp. 151-2. 



'Ibid., p. 169. 



