THE SIGNIFICANCE OP THE COURTSHIP AND 

 SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF 

 ARANEADS 1 



PROFESSOR T1IOS. II. MONTGOMERY, JR. 



But few observers have made special studies in those 

 phenomena in spiders of which it is proposed to treat 

 in the present communication. The first studies, by 

 Canestrini, were inaccessible to me. The main work on 

 the subject is that of Professor and Mrs. Peckham 

 (1889, 1890). They have described in great detail the 

 courtship of a considerable number of Attida\ and have 

 given excellent illustrations of the attitudes of the males. 

 Then after an analysis of the phenomena in question they 

 have criticized the views of Wallace (1889), and have 

 accepted that part of the sexual selection theory of Dar- 

 win which accounts for secondary sexual differences on 

 the basis of an esthetic discrimination by the female. 

 The results of these studies have been generally accepted 



In the introduction to their last memoir (191)9) they have 

 reiterated their arguments, with the addition of certain 



on this subject is mv paper of 1903, in which is described 

 in detail the courtship of certain lycosids, agelenids, 

 dictynids, theridiids, pholcids, epeirids and thomisids. 

 My general theoretical conclusions were quite different 

 from those of the Peckhams: the adult male is excited 

 simultaneously by fear of and desire for the female, and 

 his courtship motions "are for the most part exaggera- 

 tions of ordinary motions of fear and timidity. By such 

 motions he advertises himself to the female as a male, but 



