If, AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



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What trace lias (lie female left of her identity? By what subtle influence 

 docs she attract her wooer to settle in her vicinity? By what strange 

 responsive power does ho know the signs, and discern that his mate and 

 the mating hour arc nigh? There is no fact in the life of spiders that 

 has struck mo with greater force as an unsolved mystery of Nature than 

 this. I have no suggestions to offer in answer of the <|uerios raised, but 

 proceed to give such facts about the pairing of spiders as have passed 

 under my observation, and boon gathered from the records of others. 



To arachnologists such studies are of special value. In the systematic 

 grouping of spiders, among the characters to which later students give 

 greatest force are the distinctive organs of the male and female. The 

 characters of the palp on the one, and the epigynum on the other, dom- 

 inate (lie decisions by which species are determined. It is certainly reason- 

 able to infer that if the external forms of these organs are of such con- 

 trolling value in determining species, the use of the organs, or, in other 

 words, the manner of pairing, might be expected to show characteristic 

 differences. In point of fact we so find it; and the reader will be able to 

 determine bow closely the one may correspond with the other. I venture 

 to add the suggestion that habits which stand at the very gates of life 

 must ha\e especial value in the natural history of such creatures as we 

 are studying, and no artificial delicacy should turn aside the student. 



It seems probable that fewer male spiders than females are hatched 

 from the eggs ; or, that fewer reach the adult state. At least, one finds 

 not only in collections, but in field observations, that females 

 commonly greatly outnumber males. It would follow that one 

 male spider probably serves as gallant for several females, a 

 Fewer. species of polygamy which reminds us of the barnyard chanti- 

 cleer. This fact, as has been said, 1 would indicate that the peril 

 which an aranoad husband is commonly supposed to undergo during 

 courtship has been considerably exaggerated by writers. According to 

 I>e (Jeer, in his observation upon Linyphia montana, a single male suffices 

 for many females, to whom he pays his respects consecutively in the same 

 hour.- Mr. Campbell saw one male in union with three females of Tege- 

 naria guyonii during twenty days in August. 3 Professor Peckham records 

 similar facts among the Saltigrades. Thorell speaks of the male as "the 

 rarer sex," 1 and Darwin was informed by Blackwall that males are more 

 numorous than females with a few species, but that the reverse appears to 

 lie the case out of several species in six genera. On the other hand, Mr. 

 t'amphell captured ten spiderlings of Tegenaria and found that seven of 

 thorn showed the swollen palps of the immature male. 5 



Kiiii!.- r.lanclianl, i|Uot<-<! from IJrvur .Irs Deux M.m.lcs in " Popular Seizure." Octo- 

 ber, isss. - Vi.lc Walck., Aptrivs. Vol. 11., pa K i- 411, nui.pl. 



1 I. inn. S.H-. .lour. X....1., Vol. XVII.. " Pairing of 'lYjicnana yuyonii," pajjc 11)7. 

 4 "(In Kuropraii S|,i,lri>," pajje Llio. Pairing of Teg. guyonii," j.u-r Itis. 



