28 



PECKHAM. 



[Vol. 1. 



the female the falces are vertical and only as long as the face, 

 the fang being equally reduced, and the white hairs are absent. 

 The male is rendered still more striking by the long, snowy 

 white hairs which cover his clypeus, while the forehead and a 

 space just below the first row of eyes is covered with bright 

 red hairs. All this ornamentation is lacking in the female, 

 and the contrast between the showy male and his modestly 

 attired mate is very striking. In the little cosmopolitan zebra 

 spider, Epiblemwm scenicurn we find the same difierence in the 

 size of the falces of the two sexes, the male 

 having them four times as long as the face, 

 while in the female they are only one-and-a- 

 half times as long. Dr. Koch, in his magni- 

 ficent work Arachniden Auatraliens, figures and 

 describes an Attus Opisthoncus almormis (Fig. 5), 

 with curiously formed falces. Their general 

 color is yellowish brown, but the front surface 

 is coppery red, and toward the inner edges 

 they are of a pretty, iridescent, bronzy green ; 

 but nature, less generous to the female, has 

 given her only some white hairs over her small 

 and unmodified yellowish brown falces. For 

 abnOTm?s^Tt*TOm*'K purooses of offcnse or defense, however, the 

 faoe'^'amwaices^'^oi female fang is the more eff'ective of the two, 



male; lower figure, , n r ^^ i i n i i- 



face and falces of and our fine lellow doubtless hopes more from 



female. i . , i i • 



his beauty than his strength. 



In the sub-family Tetragnathinm the falces are long in 

 both sexes, but longer and much more ornamented with vari- 

 ous processes and bunches of hair in the male than in the 

 female.^ (Figs. 6 and 7, see p. 29.) The two figures fairly 

 represent this greater development in the one sex than in 

 the other. 



Oanestrini remarks on the sexual difierences in the falces, 

 saying : "Sometimes they are long and strong, with fine teeth. 



1 This point has also been noted by J. H. Bmerton, New England Epeiridce, p. 

 298. He says of the Tetragnathince : "The mandibles, especially in the males, are very 

 long, and toothed on the inner edge." 



