Newly emerged crab spiderlings Misumena vatia (Clerck 1757) that recruit to goldenrod Solidago spp. inflorescences are subject to predation by small jumping spiders (Salticidae), principal among them being middle-instar Pelegrina insignis (Banks 1892). I censused goldenrod inflorescences to determine whether the distribution and abundance of crab spiderlings and small jumping spiders were related to one other. The censuses demonstrated a modest negative relationship in the presence of the two species to each other on the inflorescences of goldenrod clones. On inflorescences cleared of spiders and stocked with 20 dyed crab spiderlings, a strongly negative relationship occurred between numbers of recruiting jumping spiders and crab spiderlings on the first two days, but on the third and fourth days a significant positive relationship occurred. A similar pattern occurred on clones cleared of spiders and stocked with 20 spiderlings and three jumping spiders, but the shift to a positive relationship took place after a single day. This shift in behavior apparently occurred after the spiderlings found satisfactory hiding and hunting sites. Seventeen of the 39 jumping spiders captured at these sites during the two experiments had dye on their mouthparts, indicating that they had captured crab spiderlings during this time.