Foibles of insects and men / by William Morton Wheeler.

  • Wheeler, William Morton, 1865-1937.
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Foibles of insects and men / by William Morton Wheeler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    MacCook, Emerton, G. W. and E. G. Peckham, Montgomery and Petrun- kevitch in America, Simon and Berland in France, and Bristowe and Locket in England, and exhibits extraordinary diversity in different species. The Peckhams have called attention to elaborate dances of the males of the jumping spiders (Attidie) and the preferential display of the more orna¬ mented or more highly colored parts of their bodies and appendages before the females, and similar behavior has been recently described and minutely analyzed by Locket, and Bristowe and Locket in the British hunting spiders Figure Pisaura mirabilis Clerck. in copula. The Female (Above) is Eat¬ ing a Fly Previously Wrapped up in Silk and Given Her by the Male. (After Bristowe and Locket.) of the family Lycosidx. Their account of the courtship of Pisaura mirabilis is extremely interesting from its bearing on the courtship of some of the Empidids and the Cardiacephala described above: “A male was given a fly and placed in a box with a female. He proceeded to enwrap the fly with silk; and then walked about with it in a )erkv fashion until presently the attention of the female was attracted, and she approached him. He held out the fly to her and, after testing it with her fakes, she seized hold of it. The male then crept to a position almoft beneath the female, a little to one side, and inserted his right palp. (Fig. 55). After 2.5 minutes he withdrew his palp and joined the female at the fly, and then, after some curious jerky movements, he inserted his left palp. This was withdrawn after 16}4 minutes, but it was applied again for another 6j,4 minutes, and finally the right palp was applied for \(A/i minutes, the total time of mating being 1 hour 11 minutes (G. H. L.). On another occasion the male did not have time to wrap up the fly, but the female leapt down to him and seized it from him. Mating followed, but only one palp was applied (for 18 minutes) before they separated. Throughout the mating the female sucked the fly. One male which was placed with a fly in a case where a female had just been, caught it and wrapped it up at once. On the following day he was given a fly, and enclosed in a case where no female had ever been. He ate the whole