No. 1.] SEXUAL SELECTION IN SPIDERS. 41 



these little creatures as it is said to be among the higher races. 

 For several days, in visiting this fence, we found goodly num- 

 bers on each rail, but after a little they grew scarcer and 

 scarcer and at last we were unable to find one where a short 

 time before they had been so common. 



It was much more comfortable to study tliem after they 

 had been put into the mating boxes and within the next few 

 days we had seen many of them pair. The males were very 

 quarrelsome and had frequent fights, but we never found that 

 they were injured. Indeed, after having watched hundreds of 

 seemingly terrible battles between the males of this and other 

 species, the conclusion has been forced upon us that they are 

 all sham affairs ^ gotten up for the purpose of displaying before 

 the females, who commonly stand by, interested spectators. 

 This is entirely contrary to what we had expected, and early in 

 the season we, on several occasions, forcibly parted the combat- 

 ants, fearing that they would kill each other. The falces in 

 many of the males are, it is true, much lengthened, but as 

 weapons of offense the shorter fangs of the female are much 

 more deadly. In twelve species, in which we witnessed num- 

 berless fights, we could never discover that one of the valiant 

 males was wounded in the slightest degree. 



In this new species the position of the female while watch- 

 ing the male is unlike that of any of the others. She lies close 

 to the ground with her first legs 

 directed upward and forward, 

 while her second legs are held 

 on the ground and stretched for- 

 ward in front of her face (Fig. g~ 

 14). The male, when approach- „,,„., -,, , t. -.■ 



' ' '^': Fig. 14.— Undesoribed .species. Position 



ing her, does not throw his legs faturTby kk)''''^'''''''''"'''^ ^^'^''^'' '*™'" 



high over his head, as he does 



before another male, but raises his body on his six hind legs ; 



1 Cuvier remarks tliat "the males sometimes engage in contests in wMch their 

 mancenvres are very singular, but which do not terminate fatally." Animal Kingdom, 

 trans, by Carpenter and Westwood, London, 1863. p. 464. 



Hentz [N. A. Spiders, p. 133) saw two males of Linyphia communis fighting an 



