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THE AMEBIC AN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIV 



In their last study (1909) they figure the male posturings 

 in Pellenes and Euophrys—m E. monadnock the male 

 taking such a pose as to display at once the yellow palps, 

 the heavily bristled, black first leg pairs (held elevated), 

 and the orange femora of the third and fourth pairs. 



Finally, I would add the observations made by me last 

 summer on a considerable number of pairs of the large 

 rhidippus purpuratus C. Koch. Here the male is not 

 much smaller than his mate, but much darker and with 

 more iridescence. A male will court on sight of a female, 

 without first touching her ; his motions consist of elevation 

 of the cephalic region, raising and outspreading the first 

 leg pair (with some waving of them), accompanied with 

 advance towards the female and retreat from her as well, 

 as side-stepping. After a male has once courted and won 

 a mate, if he is kept in the same cage with her, he there- 

 after courts to much less degree, and finally not at all, 

 before embracing her ; that is, he would seem to have lost 

 his fear of her, and indeed the pregnant female will more 

 frequently run away from him than he from her. 



IV. Interpretation of the Courtship Phenomena 

 Preliminaries to mating, whereby one individual seeks 

 to gain the favor of another, constitute what we mean 

 here as courtship. My previous definition (1903) of it, 

 "a rhythmically repeated set of motions on the part of 

 the male," was incomplete in limiting the process to one 

 sex, for the female also may take part. Some mode of 

 courtship would then occur where there is no immediate 

 seizure of the female by the male, and where one of the 

 individuals, generally the male, is the more eager. 



In some cases there is no courtship, where the male is as 

 large or larger than the female, the male seizing the 

 female— sometimes appropriating her when immature, and 

 mating with her shortly after her last moult. And in the 

 thomisids the male captures his mate by superior agility. 

 But more usually there is some form of courtship, and this 

 may be by either touch or sight. 



