242 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRDS 



of caterpillars. It is the same in other parts of the 

 world. 



Mr. G. A. K. Marshall, in the course of five years' 

 observation in South Africa, recorded eight cases of 

 birds capturing butterflies. 



Similarly Mr. Banta points out in various issues of 

 Nature, in 1912, that all the evidence available shows 

 that in North America birds very rarely capture 

 butterflies. Field naturalists scarcely ever witness a 

 butterfly chased by a bird. Of 40,000 stomachs of 

 birds examined very few were found to contain re- 

 mains of butterflies. 



In 191 1 the butterflies of the species Eugonia cali- 

 fornica were so numerous that " the ground was often 

 blackened with them, and great swarms of them 

 filled the air from morning to evening." Yet of the 

 birds in the locality where those butterflies were most 

 numerous, only five out of forty-five species were 

 found by direct observation and stomach examination 

 to eat the eugonia, and the only bird that fed off them 

 copiously was the brewer blackbird {Euphagus cyano- 

 cephalus) which is almost omnivorous, and eats insects 

 of all kinds, even if they be what Darwinians call 

 warningly coloured ! 



Now, modern theorists, as a rule, ignore facts such 

 as these, and this certainly is the wisest course they 

 can pursue, unless they are ready to give up these 

 theories or make themselves look foolish. 



Hov/ever, I am glad to be able to record that Pro- 

 fessor Poult on has, as regards the remarks of Mr. Banta, 

 not followed the usual course of the modern theorist. 



