1904.] PACKAED— ORIGIN OF MARKINGS OF ORGANISMS. 413 



during thirty years' residence in Kent he has not observed a single 

 fact of this kind. 



Mr. Skertchly's statement is as follows : 



''Mr. W. B. Pryer, in his notes on the Rhopalocera of British 

 North Borneo, casts a doubt on certain points connected with the 

 theory of mimicry, stating that during twenty years' collecting in 

 the Far East he never saw a butterfly taken by a bird.* Discussing 

 this question with him in England and Borneo I was led to study 

 the matter more particularly, and as my work takes me for months 

 at a time into the virgin forest, my opportunities have been unusu- 

 ally great That mimicry does exist probably no one has 



ever doubted since Bates first called attention to the phenomena. 

 The explanation, too, proffered at the time, that edible species 

 copied nauseous morsels, was so simple, so full, so entirely explana- 

 tory that, like Darwin's theory of coral reefs, it seemed unassail- 

 able. Indeed so strong was this feeling, that few naturalists ever 

 seem to have looked for facts to support it. 



"Yet how meagre the evidence is! Surely if birds are in the 

 habit of eating butterflies as a staple article of food, the fact would 

 be patent to every ornithologist and entomologist, to every one who 

 delights in the beauties of nature. Such is not the case, and even 

 Distant, in his ' Rhopalocera malayana,' can only cite a (ew iso- 

 lated cases. That some birds frequently, and others occasionally, 

 devour butterflies is certain. But these are rare exceptions. 



"Mr. Fryer's remark has been paralleled by Mr. Scudder, and 

 after thirty years' observation of insects and birds in Europe, Asia, 

 Africa and America, I can confidently assert that I have never yet 

 seen a bird take a butterfly. *"* 



Prof. E. A. Minchin, while in Madras, saw a bird swoop down 

 and carry off a butterfly {^Elymnias tLndularis)} 



6. Cases Observed in Natal, South Africa. 



In his " Five years of observations and experiments on the bio- 

 nomics of South African insects," G. A. K. Marshall gives records 



1 Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist., Jan., 1887, p. 44. Mr. Fryer's statement is as 

 follows : *' Moths are ruthlessly eaten by birds by day and by bats at night ; but 

 I have never once in a twenty years' experience seen a butterfly taken by a 

 bird," (A, S. P.) 



' Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist., 6th Ser, III, 1889, p. 477. 



3 Trans. Ent. Society, London, 1904, p. xxxvii. 



