1973] 
Ranvousse — A raneus diadernatus 
29 
Figure 4. Body weight of 14 male littermates in set II of Araneus 
diadernatus hatched in the laboratory on March 6, 1972. Dashed line: 
weekly mean body weight for the 11 FG males. Dotted line: weekly mean 
body weight for the three SG males. Numerals followed by an arrow 
indicate the number of animals molting for the last time during a week. 
The FG animals reached their maximum weight the 12th week post-hatch- 
ing, the SG males reached their maximum the 27th week post-hatching, 
when the FG males are dead. (Compare with Fig. 2.) 
The rate of building : 
set 1 set II 
FG 
0.57 w/d 
0.64 w/d 
SG 
O.31 w/d 
0.30 w/d 
between the two last molts was significantly higher than the rate of 
building during the previous stages of growth in both sets (set I: 
N = 9, T = 2, P = 0.01 ; set II: N — 12, T = 1.5, P = 0.01 
Wilcoxon test). 
What explanations are there for differences in frequency of build- 
ing? A multiplicity of factors have been found to have some in- 
fluences on web-building: a change from dark to light, a steep rise 
