410 PACKARD— ORIGIN OF MARKINGS OF ORGANISMS. [Dec. 2 



''Notwithstanding that insect-eating birds are relatively rare, and 

 perhaps only exceptionally capture butterflies, the latter are with 

 their small bodies and large wings difficult to seize. As a rule only 

 such birds as swallows with their long bills can catch them. And 

 because of this difficulty in butterflies their colors and markings are 

 not of very much importance. They are all rejected or captured 

 exceptionally, but at the same time almost without choice. 



" It is not to be denied that many species are perhaps truly 

 inedible, but this must be carefully confirmed by painstaking obser- 

 vation. It seems inadvisable to draw conclusions as to inedibility 

 and protection only from coloring, markings, shape of wing, or 

 special odors, which are not essentially perceptible to us." 



Weismann, in his Vortrdge, etc. (1902), claims that many butter- 

 flies are sacrificed by birds, though he records no instance of his 

 own observations, but quotes Poppig as saying that in the primitive 

 forest of South America it is not difficult to recognize where one of 

 the Galbulidae has chosen its favorite perch, since the wings of the 

 largest and most splendid butterflies, whose bodies are alone eaten, 

 cover the ground for some steps in circumference. 



Direct observations on the pursuit of butterflies by birds are due 

 especially to Dr. Hahnel, who while collecting in Central and 

 South America found many opportunities of observing it. He 

 writes: *' No other kind of butterflies are so much hunted as the 

 Pieridae, and these robbers often snapped up the most beautiful 

 and fresh specimens close to me. The unfailing certainty of their 

 flight made me wonder, and I willingly paid for the spectacle 

 with the loss of a specimen." As to the chase of that large 

 species of Caligo, on whose leaf-like under side is an ocellus, he says : 

 With mcredible adroitness did the great creature escape the strokes 

 of the beak of the bird following hard after it and escape from one 

 bush to another, until finally the hunted game was driven into the 

 thickest of the mass of tangled branches and the tired bird flew off" 

 to a distance on another chase. Hahnel adds that the wonderfully 

 beautiful Morpho cissus was seized by dragon flies, while quantities 

 of lizards pursue and eat butterflies (Weismann^. Caspari observes 

 that swallows catch butterflies. He once let about a hundred 

 Vanessa aniiopa fly out of his window, *' but scarcely ten reached the 

 woods nearby, the rest were eaten by the swallows," which collected 

 expressly for the purpose before his window. 



Slevogt has brought forward many proofs that our native butter- 



