No. 3.] SEXUAL SELECTION IN SPIDERS. 145 



first point, Mr. Wallace admits the display, and says that tlie 

 female is probably pleased or excited by it, but he thinks that 

 the males act as much from an internal impulse to motion and 

 exertion as from any desire to please their mates. Why, then, do 

 they not perform their antics when alone, as much as when in 

 the presence of the female? He also thinks that while the 

 female does exercise a choice in the selection of her mate, she 

 is influenced, not by superior color or ornament, but by vigor 

 and liveliness. Although we object to his dismissing the color 

 as entirely meaningless, we fully agree with him that the female 

 is strongly influenced by the agility of the male. Where both 

 sexes are dull colored this is all that he has to depend upon to 

 render himself attractive to her. Thus, as he has himself 

 noted, " Goatsuckers, geese, carrion vultures and many other 

 birds of plain plumage have been observed to dance, spread 

 their wings or tails, and perform strange love-antics," and the 

 same proposition holds true among spiders. 



Owing to the habits of birds and insects the particulars of 

 their love-making are very difficult to obtain, but in spiders we 

 have positive evidence that in all the species of Attidse that we 

 have thus far been able to obtain under proper conditions for 

 study, the female watches the love-antics of the male with 

 great attention. Mr. Pocock has suggested that the attitude of 

 observant interest on the part of the female spider might be 

 taken to indicate that she was preparing to spring upon her 

 mate and devour him ; or that it might simplj' mean that she 

 was warily guarding herself from his approach. Neither of 

 these suppositions is admissible. In some species the male is 

 not attacked by the female, and when she does wish, as fre- 

 quently happens, either to avoid or to destroy him, her attitude 

 is totally different. In the former case she turns about and 

 Tuns rapidly away, or suspends herself by a thread of web. In 

 the second, there is a contraction of all the muscles, the legs 

 are drawn together, and in this crouching position she creeps 

 slowly toward him, as she might if he were a fly, only with 

 something more malignant in her aspect. When she takes 

 this stand the male incontinently flees. When, on the con- 



