No. 519] THE COURTSHIP OF ARANEADS 



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the courtship is by touch it is wholly excluded that the 

 female can have any esthetic appreciation of the male she 

 is actuated either by sexual desire or by its absence. But 

 where there is courtship by sight, as in the at t ids and 

 some lycosids, the Peckhams have consistently maintained 

 that the female is influenced by an esthetic appreciation 

 of the colors, ornaments and postures of the male, and 

 that she chooses that male that pleases her esthetic sense ; 

 and they have reiterated this view in their last paper 

 (1909) without referring to my quite different interpreta- 

 tion (1903). Now there is no doubt that, as the Peckhams 

 have shown, when there is courtship by sight the female 

 attentively watches the male, and also no doubt that the 

 male's motions are generally such as to exhibit his colors 

 and ornaments to the best advantage ; an exception to this 

 is that the male of Lycosa bilineata exhibits no courtship 

 although his fore-legs are provided with thick brushes 

 of hairs. Then there is the interesting observation (Peck- 

 ham, 1889) that of the two male forms of Astia vittata 

 the female always selects the more ornamented niger-va- 

 riety, which is darker and possesses plumose tufts on the 

 cephalothorax, though it is not stated in how many cases 



form "is much the more lively form of the two"; it might 

 then be the case that the female selects him not because 

 he is more ornamented, but because he is more lively,— 

 therefore because he more quickly advertises himself as 

 a male. This seems to me to be the correct understanding 

 of the matter. For just as we have no evidence that the 

 male consciously endeavors to exhibit his attractions, we 

 have also no evidence that the female is influenced esthe- 

 tically. What we do know is that the male by his court- 

 ship, a set of motions resulting from the conflicting states 

 of sexual desire and fear, exhibits or advertises himself 

 as a male ; and that the female on sight of this courtship 

 recognizes him as a male and accepts him if she be eager, 

 or else becomes gradually stimulated by watching him. 

 In other words, too great an assumption is made in sup- 

 posing the female to have an esthetic sense, while it is 



