The same author thus describes the courtship of _Dendryphantes
elegans_: "While from three to five inches distant from her, he
begins to wave his plumy first legs in a way that reminds one of
a windmill. She eyes him fiercely, and he keeps at a proper
distance for a long time. If he comes close she dashes at him,
and he quickly retreats. Sometimes he becomes bolder, and when
within an inch, pauses, with the first legs outstretched before
him, not raised as is common in other species; the palpi also are
held stiffly out in front with the points together. Again she
drives him off, and so the play continues. Now the male grows
excited as he approaches her, and while still several inches
away, whirls completely around and around; pausing, he runs
closer and begins to make his abdomen quiver as he stands on
tiptoe in front of her. Prancing from side to side, he grows
bolder and bolder, while she seems less fierce, and yielding to
the excitement, lifts up her magnificently iridescent abdomen,
holding it at one time vertical, and at another sideways to him.
She no longer rushes at him, but retreats a little as he
approaches. At last he comes close to her, lying flat, with his
first legs stretched out and quivering. With the tips of his
front legs he gently pats her; this seems to arouse the old demon
of resistance, and she drives him back. Again and again he pats
her with a caressing movement, gradually creeping nearer and
nearer, which she now permits without resistance, until he crawls
over her head to her abdomen, far enough to reach the epigynum
with his palpus." (G.W. Peckham, "Sexual Selection of Spiders,"
_Occasional Papers of the Natural History Society of Wisconsin_,
1889, quoted in _Nature_, August 21, 1890.)

The courtship of another spider, the _Agelena labyrinthica_, has