No. 2.] PROTECTIVE RESE3IBLANCES IN SPIDERS. 95 



Their habit of hanging always exposed in tlie center of 

 the web. 



In an interesting discussion of the protective value of color 

 and marking in insects, Poulton says that "the smaller conver- 

 gent groups of nauseous 

 insects often present us 

 with ideally perfect types 

 of warning patterns and 

 colors — simple, crude, 

 strongly contrasted— every- 

 thing subordinated to the 

 paramount necessity of be- 

 coming conspicuous," the 

 memory of enemies being 

 thus strongly appealed to. 



This proposition is well pig. g. — Oasteracaatha erepidopliora (fron 



illustrated by the Gastera- '*™ " ^^ ' 



canthidee. Among larvas the warning colors are almost invari- 

 ably black and white, or black (or some very dark color), in con- 

 trast with yellow, orange and red.* These are the colors that 

 also constantly recur among the Gasteracanthidte. 



I will cite a few species as illustrative of the general color- 

 ing in the group. 



0. lepida Camb., Proc. Zool. Soc, 1870, p. 821. "The 

 upperside is of a bright, rich, orange yellow, with two broad 

 parallel transverse bands of blood-red tinged with carmine. * 

 * * The abdomen might almost be described as alternately 

 barred on the upper side, with transverse bars of red and 

 yellow." 



Phorovcidia aurata Camb., (Plate III, fig. 4). Referred to 

 by Butler, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1882, p. 766, as follows: "Four 

 examples of this rare and extremely beautiful species were 

 obtained. * * Two of these are typical, their abdomen being 



* Uxperimentnl Proof of FrotectiveValue of Color and Markings hi InsecfSthy 

 E. B. Poulton, Trans. Ent. Soc, 18S7, p. 230. 



*Poulton, loc. cit., p. 231. 



