No. 519] 



THE COURTSHIP OF ARANEADS 



167 



conscious of his beauties, which are generally so placed 

 that he can not perceive them himself, but has also an 

 idea that he may arouse the female's esthetic sense. The 

 Peckhams remark (1890, p. 122) : 



That whatever fine points of color or structure the male possesses, 

 his actions before the female display them to the very best advantage; 

 indeed, he seems to have a strong consciousness of every advantage, 

 and to sedulously strive to bring it to the notice and impress its beauty 

 upon the mind of the female to whom he is paying his addresses. 

 But they add a modifying foot-note : 



We do not say that, in our opinion, he is conscious of his strong 

 points. It is quite conceivable that the tendency to perform the antics 

 may have developed along with the beauties which they serve to display 

 without any idea of this existence dawning in the mind of the spider. 



I think we should, until we have evidence to the con- 

 trary, accept as the correct interpretation the suggestion 

 stated in that last sentence of the Peckhams, i. e., that 

 the male is not conscious that he is influencing the female, 

 either sexually or esthetically. 



We have just seen that the raising of the forelegs in 

 courtship is but a modification of the general attitude of 

 defense, therefore not primarily for display. The waving 

 of the palpi may follow any excitement, is also not ex- 

 clusively sexual. And I have been interested in finding 

 a partial explanation of a male attitude exhibited by cer- 

 tain attids, namely the lateral flexion of the abdomen. In 

 I'hidtjipus pitrpuratus the male at frequent intervals in 

 his courtship touches his spinnerets to the ground, thus 

 attaching a silken line, and then in his side-wheeling be- 

 fore the female, with closed spinnerets, this line pulls his 

 abdomen to one side. Such flexion of the abdomen, at 

 least in this particular species, is thus not a conscious 

 effort of display, but is due to a simple tension of the 

 ordinary drag-line. 



Last summer I observed in several species the curious 

 phenomenon of males courting one another in the same 

 way as they do females. I placed in a small cage two 

 males of Pardosa pallida, Emert., and they moved their 



