SHORT CUTS BY BIRDS TO NECTARIES. 413 
I cannot believe that Parus would search for nectar ; and very clearly T 
think the laceration [later in the day ] of the calyx was made with the object 
of enabling ants to reach the nectary. Phylloscopus may possibly bea nectar- 
eater, but this is doubtful." 
Dr. Lowe goes on to discuss whether the habit is acquired or instinctive, 
and is led to the former conclusion by the fact that he has only observed 
imported flowers thus treated. At Chirinda both imported and indigenous 
flowers are thus treated, and the imported flowers are sometimes not very 
different in principle to indigenous ones; but it does seem to me a habit 
that, acquired originally perhaps as a lucky or a clever invention, is likely in 
birds to have been spread and handed down by example. All our flower- 
haunting birds at Chirinda are of species that tend to go about in family 
parties for some little time after the young can fly, and the latter would 
certainly learn from their parents to pierce flowers or utilize previous 
punctures. Learning on indigenous flowers, thev would apply their ex- 
perience to imported species too, and find out by experiment or example 
the right spots to pierce. 
To revert to the question of motive, Dr. Lowe's observations were most 
careful and exact, and I have myself, as already stated, seen insects attacked 
by birds that seemed to be visiting flowers primarily for the nectar. It is 
perhaps, however, worth noting that in his observations on the //ibiscus 
the Blackcaps made the usual perforations in spite of the fact that the 
ants—and a powerful attraction to them, aphides—were present already on 
the calyces, and that they (the ants) in any case ignored the holes in favour 
of the aphides ; a small wasp and a small bee were the only insects that 
visited them ; and that Garden Warblers (Sylvia simpler, Lath.) freely 
punctured Antholyza flowers in spite of there being practically no insects but 
hive-bees to attract. As for the question whether the warblers observed 
were nectar-eaters at all, I have myself watched Sylvia simplex, Lath., and 
Phylloscopus trochilus (Linn.) Boie, as well as that very common Atrican 
warbler, Prinia mystacea, Rüpp., entering flower after flower and (Sylvia and 
Prinia) utilizing injuries, the main object, at any rate while I was watching, 
being in all cases quite definitely the nectar. I cannot help suspecting, there- 
fore, that the habit of puncturing in such species will have arisen originally 
from a wish for the nectar, though it is, of course, certain that the birds 
would quickly learn that insects too can be obtained from the punctures, and 
might visit them, and even make them, for the sake of the insects as well as 
the nectar, or when disinclined for the nectar itself. Dr. Lowe's observation 
on the Black-headed Tits which kept revisiting the flowers they had pierced 
and clearing off the ants, is quite a striking one, and it may be that they 
perforate with a view only to insects, having learned the habit originally 
perhaps from what took place at punctures made by other birds. My own 
