42 
GENERAL NOTES. 
PARTHENOGENESIS AMONG SPIDERS. 
Under the above title* Mr. Dainiii presented a paper before the 
zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft of Vienna at its meeting of March 
1, 1893. After referring to the frequency with which parthenogenesis 
occurs in the various orders of insects, Mr. Daurin stated that up to 
the present time it had not been reported as occurring among spiders. 
He then recorded what he believed to be a case of the parthenogenesis 
of Araneina. In the spring of 1891 he inclosed separately two living 
specimens of Filistata testacea Latr., for the purpose of observing them. 
One of these molted twice during the summer of 1891 and once the 
following spring, " a proof," Mr. Damin says, " that when inclosed it 
was unripe — that is, was, according to our present knowledge of the 
subject, incapable of reproduction." This female spun an egg-sac on 
the 8th of July, and eighteen days later Mr. Damin was surprised upon 
opening the egg-sac to find sixty-seven young spiders in it. Two days 
later they molted. At the time the paper was presented the young 
spiders were still alive and have safely molted once outside of their 
cocoon. Mr. Damin asks : " Does this not tend to prove that partheno- 
genesis obtains in the case of Filistata testacea, and perhaps also with 
other spiders'?" And he adds: "The possibility of a mistake is here 
out of the question." Mr. Damin then refers to the fact that this Fil- 
istata is very common in Croatia, and is well represented in his collec- 
tion, but says that he was struck by the fact that there was no male 
among them, and that he had never seen a male, either dead or alive. 
He then asks if this absence of the male does not indirectly indicate 
the parthenogenesis of Filistata, and adds that neither Thorell in his 
two works nor C. Koch mentions the male of Filistata testacea. The 
arachnologists, Dr. C. Chyzer of Ujhely, and Prof. W. Kulczynski, of 
Krakau, wrote that they had not found the male of Filistata. The 
latter had received one male specimen from Madeira. Mr. Damin 
remarks further that additional observations are necessary to show 
whether parthenogenesis is a chance occurrence with Filistata, as with 
Bombyx mori and some butterflies, or something which occurs normally, 
as with Psyche, Solenobia, etc. He mentions also, as worthy of note, 
that this female spider which had produced young parthenogenetically 
cast its skin two months later, although it has been considered well 
established heretofore that after the first deposition of eggs spiders do 
not molt. 
The evidence thus adduced by Mr. Damin seems to us inconclusive, 
since spiders in confinement are well known to differ somewhat from 
their normal habits, and especially are known to shed one or more 
* Ueber Parthenogenesis bei Spinnen. N". Damin, Verh. d. k. k. zool.-bot. Gesell. 
in Wien, Jahrg. 1893, XLIII Band; II Qnartal., pp. 204-6. 
