Article beginning on page 147.
Psyche 5:147, 1888.

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PSYCHE.
NOTES ON PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE IN SPIDERS. BY GEORGE F. ATKINSON, COLUMBIA, S. C.
A very interesting case of unintention-
al mimicry by A&o$e hwa came
to my notice a few years ago. A vil-
lager in western North Carolina found
a web of this species in his garden. He
was struck by the peculiar zig-zag line
across the web and imagined he could
read WAR! WAR!! WAR!!! It
attracted considerable attention among
the inhabitants of the town. A notice
of this was published in the village pa- per and copied in several of the state
papers. It created considerable conster- nation among the superstitious ones of
the inhabitants, who regarded the por-
tents of war with fear. It is interesting to reflect how, if ignorance and su-
perstition belonged to our people as to
some of the peoples of ancient countries, this incident might have given us a
"å´Sacre spider," and thus afforded it
the protection which these gods were
wont to receive.
Beside the case mentioned by Hentz*
where Synemosyna formica resembled
ants when crawling on the blades of
grass and corn, I have frequently no-
*Spiders of the U. s., p. 73.
ticed this species ( probably the same ) running on the bare ground in the hot
sun, in roads and paths, mimicking al-
most to perfection certain of the smaller members of the mutillidae.
Tetragtzatha frequently mimics elon-
gated dark blotches on grass stems.
I have often seen them, when frightened, leave their web and clinging to a grass
stem place their bodies close to the
stem, stretch their anterior legs above, and their posterior ones below. The
body being dark and the legs green, the
spider was well protected,
Thornisus celer remains principally
on yellow flowers, and once I found a
greenish variety of this species on gol- den-rod (Solidago), the flowers of
which, not yet open, were greenish.
The pellets made of silk and bits of
leaves, and hung in a row on the web
of Epeira caudata, in many cases have
proportionately more or less of the dark and white intermingled, according as
the dark and white spots on the spider
predominate.
In the case of Acrosoma sfinea,
which makes an oblique web and hangs
on the underside of this, the white dor-



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148 PSYCHE. [ January 1889.
sum against the light of the sky as a
above it.
background might afford it a protection Many such cases can be regarded more from enemies below ; and the dark of clearly as protective since we now know the venter against the dark background that insects probably do not see form, of the earth, a protection from those but color and movement. DESCRIPTION OF EGGS AND LARVA OF APATELODES FORREFACTA.
BY CAROLINE G. SOULE, BROOKLINE, MASS.
A female found at Nonquitt, Mass.,
on I 3 July 1888, laid a mass of pale
green eggs, circular, flat on both top
and bottom, translucent, and looking
like tiny gelatine lozenges, 1.5 mm. in
diameter. 20 July, the embryo could be
seen -with a lens. Five days later the
eggs had become opaque and of a sordid
yellowish white color. 26 July, the
voung larvae hatched, being a trifle less than 6 mm. long, covered with long
white hairs, and having a few dark ones
near the head and the anal shield.
The head, body, feet, and props were
pale yellow, without marks.
The hair was dense, long over the
anal end, shorter over the middle, and
still longer on first three segments. The body became green with food. The lar-
vae rested on both sides of the sassafras ( Sassafras officinale) and ash (Praxi-
nus) leaves, and moved very fast. A
slight jar sufficed to make them fall from the leaf and drop by a silken thread.
When touched they curled up like the
arctians. They drank greedily, and ate
their cast skins.
Those Miss Ida M. Eliot had ate
beach-plum (Prunus maritha) and
oak (~uercus).
Some sent to Miss Emily M. Norton
ate wild-cherry (Pranus) .
2 Aug. The larvae molted, becoming
even whiter and "fluffier" than before,
with a dorsal line of black dashes, and
a dark pencil on the tenth segment. A
few had gray hairs over the head.
5 Aug.
They molted fo1- the second
time ;-as before with the addition of a
gray pencil on the second and third seg- ments.
Feet and props were conspicuously
white.
10 Aug. Third molt. 25 mm. long,
body green ; feet and props white ; head sordid white ; hair very long and silky, and from each dorsal- dash sprung a short black pencil.
A lateral and subventral line of black
arrow-heads appeared.
One larva became bright yellow with
the pencils tan-colored with black tips, and one was of a soft gray with black
pencils.




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