Professor Poulton, commenting on this particular case, contends that “it must be admitted that these facts afford the _strongest support_ to the theory of Sexual Selection.” But do they? A further examination of the facts will probably show that the red “form” is but an immature example, and this being so, the difference in performance and the invariable success of Othello is at once accounted for. The fact that the “two forms pass into each other” and that the “tufts only occur in the fully developed _niger_ form” is an additional reason for regarding the red form as immature. Professor Poulton remarks: “When the males possess any special adornment they make a point of displaying them as fully as possible.” If this be so it seems to be a very foolhardy proceeding, akin to holding the proverbial “red rag” to a bull: for it is well known that the male Spider seeking a mate carries his life in his hands, at any rate in the case of many species. Mr. and Mrs. Peckham observed several instances of this remarkable sequel to Love’s embraces. In describing the female of _Phidippus morsitans_ they remark that she was “a savage monster. The two males we provided for her had offered her only the merest civilities, when she leaped upon them and killed them.” The first pair of legs in the males of this species possess “special adornments” in the shape of long white hairs, and it was “while one of the males was waving these handsome legs over his head that he was seized by his mate and devoured.” Again, in the case of a male of _Phidippus rufus_, the display of his “ornaments” was his undoing, for he was “caught and eaten when he insisted upon showing off his fine points too persistently.” Thus the females seem to “select” the more resplendent males as much for eating as for mating! The ogre-like habits of the females in this regard, indeed, are almost without parallel in the animal kingdom. Anyone who cares to take the trouble to watch the web of the large Garden Spider (_Epeira diademata_) may witness one of these connubial tragedies. In this species, the males are conspicuously smaller than the females, and it is possible that this disparity has been brought about by Sexual Selection, the largest and least active males having been exterminated. In some species the discrepancy in size is most striking, as for example in _Nephila chrysogaster_, the female of which measures two inches in length, the male not more than one-tenth of an inch, and less than one one-thousand-three-hundredth part of her weight.