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Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 - Analysis of the Sexual Impulse; Love and Pain; The Sexual Impulse in Women by Havelock Ellis
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been studied by Lécaillon ("Les Instincts et les Psychismes des
Araignées," _Revue Scientifique_, Sept. 15, 1906.) The male
enters the female's web and may be found there about the middle
of July. When courtship has begun it is not interrupted by the
closest observation, even under the magnifying glass. At first it
is the male which seeks to couple and he pursues the female over
her web till she consents. The pursuit may last some hours, the
male agitating his abdomen in a peculiar way, while the female
simply retreats a short distance without allowing herself to be
approached. At last the female holds herself completely
motionless, and then the male approaches, seizes her, places her
on her side, sometimes carrying her to a more suitable part of
the web. Then one of his copulative apparatus is applied to the
female genital opening, and copulation begins. When completed (on
an average in about two hours) the male withdraws his copulatory
palpus and turns over the female, who is still inert, on to her
other side, then brings his second copulatory apparatus to the
female opening and starts afresh. When the process is definitely
completed the male leaves the female, suddenly retiring to a
little distance. The female, who had remained completely
motionless for four hours, suddenly runs after the male. But she
only pursues him for a short distance, and the two spiders remain
together without any danger to either. Lécaillon disbelieves the
statement of Romanes (in his _Animal Intelligence_) that the
female eats the male after copulation. But this certainly seems
to occur sometimes among insects, as illustrated by the following
instance described by so careful an observer of insects as Fabre.

The _Mantis religiosa_ is described by Fabre as contemplating the
female for a long time in an attitude of ecstasy. She remains
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