392 MR. С. Е. М. SWYNNERTON ON 
entered by an artificial opening. It was not a matter of the presence or 
absence of such openings, but definitely of his position relatively to the flower. 
A definitely inconvenient flower such as I had seen entered wrongly by the 
female would probably find few to enter it rightly, but naturally the bird’s 
own position counts too. When this particular male perched close up to the 
flower-ball, ог did not move round smartly in accommodation to the flowers, 
he entered even the most regular flowers wrongly. 
“ Later, evening. I ran over to Chipete (a small, 40-acre forest-patch 
crowning a hilla few hundred yards from Chirinda) ... and... examined 
а large number of Leonotis heads thereabouts on a number of the plants in 
rarious places, and could only find two individual flowers that had even the 
corolla split." 
On several other occasions, on which I omitted to take definite notes, I have 
stopped to examine roughly clumps of Leonotis that I was passing or to watch 
sunbirds visiting them. Only within the area on the forest outskirts that I 
have referred to did I find the large proportion of slit flowers described. 
Mostly I found none. From this I conclude that, as in the case of Canna 
and Erythrina, some individual birds are far more prone to slit than others, 
and that liability to slitting depends primarily on whether the individual 
plant happens to fall into the “ beat," for the time being, of such a bird. 
Comparing species, I should say that Anthothreptes hypodilus and to a зоте- 
what less extent Cinnyris niasse have been more in the habit of perching 
above the flower-ball and of utilizing artificial openings generally than has 
Cinnyris olivacina. The latter species has mostly perched below the balls, 
and entered regularly all but irregular or otherwise inconvenient flowers, 
even where artificial openings were present. 
I have alsa many times repeated my observation as to the dislike evinced 
by certain individual birds to the natural entrance. The bird has sometimes 
gone to a good deal of trouble to avoid it. 
I have, further, repeated my observations on bees utilizing sunbird openings, 
and have watched a Lycænid (Zarucus telicanus, Lang) apparently doing 
the same thing. 
Summary :— 
1. Damage, and particular kinds of damage, was found confined to 
particular areas. This and direct observation showed that liability to 
damage—and to particular kinds of damage--depended in the Leonotis, 
as in Erythrina, &e., on the presence for the time being of individual birds 
with particular idiosyncracies. 
9. As in Canna, apparently definite cases of the discriminative use of 
previously-made openings were seen, the natural opening being used where 
it was more convenient even with an artificial opening present. 
