COURTSHIP AND MATING 91 



The male spider must often coax the female out from her retreat 

 before mating; sometimes he spins a series of lines as a bower in 

 which the pairing can take place. The female of Metepeira laby- 

 rinthea spins a labyrinth of tangled threads behind her orb web and 

 stays in it much of the time. Other orb weavers hide in a leafy 

 retreat near their webs and communicate with the orb by means of 

 a signal line held in the claws of one of the legs. According to 

 G. H. Locket, the English arachnologist to whom we owe much 

 for his keen observations of the web-spinning spiders, the male of 

 Zilla x-notata "climbs to the center of the female's web and usually 

 seizes the line communicating with the female's hiding place with 

 his four front legs. With his back legs he seizes one of the adjacent 

 radii at the centre and starts a series of jerking and plucking move- 

 ments on the communicating line, using himself as a sort of spring 

 at the angle of the radii. If the female does not respond he then 

 usually climbs to her retreat, but returns again after an interplay 

 of legs . . . eventually the female comes out, also making plucking 

 motions, and, after a short interplay of legs, the male begins making 

 thrusts at her epigynum; the palps are then applied alternately." 



Among the orb weavers we find some species in which the male 

 is a mere pygmy hardly worthy of the female's notice. During the 

 mating season there are often three or four tiny males, only one- 

 fourth the length of the female, hanging in the outskirts of the web 

 of the large orange argiope, Argiope aurantia. They make known 

 their presence by plucking and vibrating the web lines. 



When advancing toward the female, the male seems to pause 

 and pull at the strands of web, as though to notify her of his 

 approach. When he comes toward her from in front she im- 

 parts a slight motion to the web with her legs, which seems to 

 serve as a warning, as he either moves away or drops out of the 

 web. When he comes from behind she pays no attention to 

 him until he begins to creep on to her body, when she slowly 

 raises one of her long legs and unceremoniously brushes him 

 off. 19 



No observations have been made of the mating of the bolas 

 spiders of the genus Mastophora. This male is such a tiny creature 

 that he probably has complete immunity from the attack of the 

 female, and clambers over her grotesque body like a tiny parasite. 



19 Peckham, "Observations on Sexual Selection in Spiders of the Family 

 Attidae," op. cit., p. 55. 



