PAIRING OF TEGENABIA GtTTONII. 169 



the former occupant was at home. They would then walk away a 

 few inches only to turn back with obstinate repetition, to satisfy 

 themselves after a closer search that they were not mistaken. 

 These spiders, like many others, usually remove their recently 

 cast skin from a web they continue to inhabit almost as soon as 

 their strength enables them ; so that the males were justified in 

 thinking that the exuvium indicated the presence of another 

 spider. 



The case just mentioned of a male killing an immature female 

 cannot be explained by her supposed sexual incapability. I have 

 seen two males similarly dismember their spouses an hour or so 

 after impregnation*. Hunger could not have been the cause ; 

 for all were well fed. One of them partook of a daddy-long-legs 

 and two blowflies during the thirty-six hours previous to his 

 attack. In fact males f -in confinement take their food much 

 better than females ; and this may be due to their being accus- 

 tomed to feed during their sexual excursions in places which are 

 strange to them. I have only twice seen a female Tegenaria 

 Guyonii drive away the male, and in each case immediately after 

 union, as has often been related of many species. On the other 

 hand, I have kept an adult pair together from the 22nd of August 

 to the 28th of October, and they lived in perfect amity. The male 

 never ceased paying unrequited attentions except to feed. One 

 male was so ferocious that I had immediately to remove on dif- 

 ferent occasions two young adult females which I had placed with 

 him. 



These cases are interesting, inasmuch as they are the converse 

 of authenticated accounts of females of other species attacking 

 the male immediately after his caresses. I have never considered 

 this action otherwise than one to be expected from a creature 

 without gregarious habits, and which must regard weaker forms 

 of animal life as food, or as an inconvenience, if we except its young 

 or its mate when in the act of pairing. Those instincts, which 

 are habitually practised throughout the far greater portion of the 

 life of the species, and on which its existence depends, would 



* In all these cases there was no regular cobweb, but only a silken sheet 

 spun at the bottom of the vase. 



t They appear to require an occasional drop of water in the vessel which 

 confines them. I have not seen them touch it ; and suppose a damp atmosphere 

 is needed. For an account of a female drinking, see Journ. Linn. Soc, Zool., 

 vol. xvi. p. 537. 



