THE COLORATION PROBLEMS. 59 



lepidopterous imagines are subject to the attacks of birds or other 

 enemies when at rest in the day time, yet he admits on page 122, only 

 two pages before his remark, that certain JUfiton hiitaria were dragged 

 into crevices by spiders, and it is my own experience that I often find 

 behind loose bark, when pupa digging and the like, the dismembered 

 wings of the victims of attack by spiders. 



On July 8th, 1910, in the New Forest I witnessed a centipede, rush 

 out of a crevice in the bark of a tree, seize a Tortri.c ribeana, that was 

 imbibing sugar, and rush back with its victim in its jaws. (The 

 captor and prey were sent to Professor Poulton). 



On July 4th, 1908, in Berewood, I witnessed a similar attack by 

 a large beetle (species ?) on Xylopliasia pulyodou, resulting in the 

 death of the latter insect. Both cases I admit were evening cases, and 

 neither lepidopterous insect could strictly be said to be at rest, as 

 both were early visitors to the sugar patch ; both, however, were 

 motionless, and both must have been seen at quite a little distance. 

 The Toitri.v at 9 or 10 inches, the A', poli/otlon at over a foot. 



In both papers in the Knt. Itecord the writers seem to desire to 

 limit the enemy predicated by the theories to birds, and to test the 

 theories by attacks on one order of insects only. Whilst I tnink this 

 is an entirely untenable position, yet as birds are to be the factor and 

 Lepidoptera the order, let us examine the matter from that point of 

 view. 



Mr. Colthrup says he finds that it is the exception for birds to 

 attack. Lieut. -Col. Manders holds the same opinion (although it 

 appears to me somewhat faintly), but notwithstanding the comparative 

 paucity of recorded evidence, 1 cannot quite agree with either gentle- 

 man. Neither one seems to me to be fair to the amount or character 

 of the evidence that has been compiled, notwithstanding that the 

 latter of them, at any rate, has quite a share of recorded evidence to 

 his credit. Neither seems to give due weight to the fact that this 

 volume of evidence, once its necessity appeared, has been daily in- 

 creasing in magnitude and that with rapidity. Do these gentlemen, 

 when they say that the birds, with the possible exception of the Tits 

 and the Kestrel, (which latter I gratefully acknowledge), do not system- 

 atically search for Lepidoptera, understand the psychology of the birds 

 themselves, and have they given full weight to their particular habits? 

 We actually know very little about what passes in the minds of the 

 birds, and we do not know much more about the capabilities of their 

 optical apparatus. It by no means follows that a moth, conspicuous 

 to the trained eye of the entomologist, backed by his superior deductive 

 capacity, is conspicuous to VariDi /Kiliistris var. dre-sxeii (the British 

 Marsh Tit) when he is looking for his breakfast. 



Mr. E. Barker Curtis, my brother, is an ornithologist first and a 

 lepidopterist second, so I am possessed of a tolerable knowledge of our 

 British Birds and he of our British Lepidoptera, and since this 

 question was raised some years back, we have, so far as our restricted 

 leisure permitted, noted the birds' feeding habits. One thing there is, 

 which we have long suspected and that we are now quite convinced of, 

 and that is that the birds will not, as a general rule, feed properly if 

 they know that they are being watched. They will pretend to feed, 

 but all the while the pretence covers the fact that they are watching 

 you. Occasionally one gets one's bird unawares, and then as often as 



