54 



PECKHAM. 



[Vol. 1, 



ground. This position he commonly takes when three or four 

 inches away. While he retains this attitude he keeps curving 

 and waving his legs in a very curious manner. Frequently he 

 raises only one of the legs of the first pair, running all the time 

 from side to side. As he draws nearer to the female he lowers 

 his body to the ground, and, dropping his legs also, places the 

 two anterior pairs so that the tips touch in front, the proximal 



joints being turned almost at 

 a right angle to the body. 

 (Fig. 26.) Now he glides in a 

 semi-circle before the female, 

 sometimes advancing, some- 

 times recedmg, until at last 

 she accepts his addresses. The 

 7iiger form, evidently a later 

 development, is much the 

 more lively of the two, and 

 whenever the two varieties 

 were seen to compete for a fe- 

 male, the black one was suc- 

 cessful. He is bolder in his manners, and we have never seen 

 him assume the prone position, as the red form did, when close 

 to the female. He always held one or both of the first legs 

 high in the air, waving them wildly to and fro, or, when the 

 female became excited, he stood perfectly motionless before her, 

 sometimes for a whole minute, seeming to fascinate her by the 

 power of his glance. (Fig. 27, see p. 55.) A female that was 

 full of eggs was looked at critically from a distance of four or 

 five inches by several ardent males, but received no further 

 attention. Although the males were continually waving their 

 first legs at each other, their quarrels were harmless. It was 

 quite otherwise with the females, since they not only kept the 

 other sex in awe of them, but not infrequently, in their battles, 

 killed each other. We thought it rather remarkable that the 

 niger variety should not have the same antics as the vittata ; 

 but since closely related species often differ greatly in color, form 



Fig. 26. — Astia vittata. Position of male 

 approaching female (from nature, by 



