236 
Peckham—The Sense of Sight in Spiders. 
a small looking-glass was placed before a male of Astia vittata, 
in the mating season, he would prance before his reflection in a 
most ludicrous fashion, throwing forward his first legs and ad¬ 
vancing toward his supposed rival as the glass was slowly 
moved away, or retreating as it was moved toward him; and 
again, that both the male and female of Phidippus morsitans' 
noticed their reflections in the mirror. The male raised his 
legs as they do upon seeing another male, while the female 
crouched, raised her first legs, and finally sprang upon the glass. 
She followed her reflection, at a distance of one inch, all around 
the box in which she was confined. The females of this species 
are exceedingly intolerant of each other as well as of the males. 
Two of them can not live in the same neighborhood; one is 
always killed and devoured by the other. 
Let us now turn to M. Plateau’s experiments upon the Ly- 
cosidse. The females, in this group, commonly carry the 
cocoon containing their eggs about with them, either attached 
to the under and hinder part of the abdomen or, as in Dolo- 
medes and Micromata, held grasped in the falces, under the 
cephalothorax. Both Plateau and Forel having, at several dif¬ 
ferent times, separated the spiders from their eggs, and having 
noted their difficulty in finding them again, have concluded that 
their sight is very poor and short. 11 
It is indeed a well established fact that when the cocoon is 
taken away from one of these spiders she is very much disturbed 
by its loss, and searches eagerly about for it, and yet that she 
may run all around it without finding it, never recognizing it 
unless she comes very close. This is the truth but not quite 
the whole truth. As a matter of fact, she never recognizes it 
unless she touches it; but let her graze it ever so slightly, with 
any part of her body and she instantly seizes it and reattaches 
it to her abdomen. 
The action is so sudden and rapid that one may easily make 
the mistake of supposing that the spider, in coming very near, 
recognizes the cocoon through the sense of sight, but close at¬ 
tention will prove that this is never the case. She always 
comes into actual contact with it before taking it. We feel very 
11 Plateau, Ibid., p. 21; Forel., Ibid , p. 19. 
