NO. 7 PROTECTIVE ADAPTATIONS McATEE 59 



Many printed pages have lieen devoted to discussion of the question : 

 " Do birds eat butterflies? " l)ut the natural answer: " Certainly, but 

 probably not out of proportion to their abundance." seems not to have 

 occurred to the disputants. 



At this point it will be well to say a word about the alleged difficulty 

 of identifying adult T.epidoptera. es]iecially butterflies in the stomach 

 contents of birds. But for this, some argue, the number of records 

 of butterflies eaten would be much larger. The assttmption is made 

 that the scales are necessary to identification, and since they are so 

 easily rubbed ofif, determination will usually be impossible. This ob- 

 jection serves mainly to exhibit the ignorance of its proposers relative 

 to the analysis of the contents of bird stomachs. In the first place 

 when adult Lepidoptera have been eaten at all recently, that fact is 

 evident to the practiced eye, even unaided, on first glance at the 

 stomach contents. A characteristic fuzzy, felted appearance, due to 

 the distribution of the hundreds of scales throughout the mass, tells 

 the tale at once. Even after digestion is far advanced the scales do 

 not disappear because they are so numerous and stick to everything, 

 and they are evident under magnifications usi-d in the analysis of 

 practically every stomach contents. Moreover were all scales absent, 

 it would be possible to unroll the wing membrane, if swallowed, and 

 examine the venation ; the antennae also would usually be present ; 

 and the form of the head, thorax, and body, which are characteristic, 

 could be made out. 



In addition we would remind the reader that all things found in 

 birds' stomachs are not ground to a powder. Just the reverse in fact 

 is true ; birds feed more or less constantly, and whenever shot they 

 will as a rule just have swallowed some article of food which, of 

 course, will be in good condition for study. In the long run all con- 

 stituents of the food will 1)e found nearly or quite intact in the 

 stomachs in proportion to the frequency in which they are taken. 



How'Cver it is unnecessary to discuss the matter further. One need 

 only consider the extent to which we have identified certain insects 

 far more fragile than butterflies, as mayflies ( Ephemeridae) 484 

 records, midges (Chironomidae) 1.003 records, and crane flies (Ti- 

 pulidae) 1,565 records, to be assured that there is no likelihood what- 

 ever of a butterfly being overlooked during careful stomach analysis. 



Of the 113 records of l)irds eating Khopalocera included in the 

 present tabulations, 24 refer to larvae and two to chrysalides. It is 

 worth noting that one of the larval records was for Anosia plexippus. 

 two for Papilio species, and six for Vanessa species, supposedly the 



