WOOING AND MATING. 29 



large male construct his domicile at the side of this female. He was wit- 

 ness of their caresses and their amours, but having been forced to be ab- 

 sent he could find upon his return only the male and a few young spiders. 

 All the females, to the number of seven or eight, had disappeared. He 

 was not able to recover them, and supposed that they had been devoured 

 by the male, who was in good condition and very lively. However, ln> 

 never could find any of the debris of the legs and mandibles, and a spider 

 is not able to devour these hard parts. 1 



Clerck kept together one male and ten females of these spiders for many 

 successive days, during which they were not provided with food, without 

 having observed the least disagreement. 2 De Geer placed many males and 

 females in the same vase, and they never attempted to injure each other. 

 He observed that when they encountered one another in the water they 

 mutually felt each other with their legs, embracing with some vigor, and 

 whether male to male or female to female, they opened wide their formi- 

 dable mandibles with such force that for the moment the observer expected 

 to see them give the death stroke. But they did nothing. After having 

 felt one another for a long time,. they separated and swam each to his own 

 cell. De Geer placed water insects into the vessel. The same spiders, who 

 had been so tolerant of one another, instantly seized and devoured these 

 creatures, their natural prey. It seemed to Baron De Geer that the Argy- 

 ronetas were less cruel than terrestrial spiders. 3 



Cambridge states that the two sexes of Agalena labyrinthea may be 



found in great amity together in their tubular retreat; so also the sexes of 



Meta segmentata, Linyphia marginata, and other species inhabit 



the same web when adult. 4 This statement is made without any 



qualification, but I am inclined to think, judging from what I know of the 



American congeners of these species, that the inhabiting of the web by the 



two sexes is not in any proper sense a dwelling together, but is confined to 



the period of pairing, when the males seek the web in courtship and remain 



sometimes hanging about the snare for several days. 



Mr. Enoch 5 found on July 7th a male and female of Atypus piceus dwell- 

 ing together in the same tube, which was a large one. He had no doubt 

 that they had been thus living together since October of the pre- 

 ceding year. If this be so, Atypus presents one of the most 

 striking examples of conjugal domesticity and fidelity thus far 

 observed among aranead tribes. The tubes of the males were generally 



1 Walckenaer, Apttres, Vol. II., page 390. 



2 Svenska Spindlar, etc., page 148. Aranei Svecici, Descriptionibus et Figuris, ete. Caroli 

 Clerck, Reg. Soc. Sclent. Upsal Memb. Stockholm!*, MDCCLVII. In Swedish and Latin. I 

 quote here and elsewhere from the Latin version. 



3 Memoire pour servir 1'Histoire des Insectes, par M. le Baron Carles De Geer. Tome 

 Septieme, Ouvrage Posthume, page 308. A Stockholm, MDCCLXXVIII. 



4 " Spiders of Dorset," page xxxiii. 



5 Life History of Atypus piceus. Trans. Ento. Soc. London, 1885, page 402. 



