Birds in Relation to tlwiv Prey. 3.3 



genus, in particular, will be found readily to attack butterflies 

 under favourable circumstances, and I will discuss tbe point 

 for Irrisor under its own heading *. 



A brief and rough account of souie of the chief insects to 

 be mentioned may be of use to those of my readers who, not 

 being entomologists, do not know them by name, yet are 

 well acquainted with their appearance in the field : — 



The Danainpe (^represented in these experiments by the 

 genera Danaida and Amauris) and the Acra^inse (by Acnea), 

 each a subfamily of the Nymphalidre, are the two groups 

 par excellence of African butterflies, the members of which 

 are frequently objectionable to their enemies. All, too, are 

 more or less sluggish and fearless. Indigestibility is the 

 real defence, accompanied in Amauris by a pungent gas- 

 like smell, in Acrcea by an abundant and readily exuding 

 poppy-flavoured fluid, in Danaida appreciably by neither. 



Danaida clirysippus is our commonest large South African 

 butterfly. It is chestnut, with a black fore-wing tip that is 

 crossed diagonally by a very conspicuous white bar. It has 

 excellent mimics. 



Amauris (also a genus of large butterflies) is roughly of 

 two types — with a large white hind-wing patch [A. ochlea 

 and A. dominicanus) or a large bujf hind-wing patch {A. 

 echeria, lohengula, and alhimaculata) . Fore wing black with 

 w^hite markings. 



Acrcea has very numerous species, large and small, mostly 

 red or reddish brown with black spotting. Abundant every- 

 where. Of the species most used in these experiments, 

 A. caldarena is common and has a large black tip to the fore 

 wing, A. terpsichore (also called huxtoni and serena} is 



* The food-huutiiig habits of Crateropus are not 3o very different from 

 those of Phyllastrephus, and I have seen members of the latter genus 

 attacking butterflies. The food of Crateroj^us, again, is very varied. I 

 have myself taken ants, termites, and various beetles, grasshoppers, and 

 larvae, as well as Hymenopterous, Dipterous, and Lepidopterous remains 

 from its stomachs ; and four stomachs that I have just examined with 

 some care all contained debris of the last-mentioned kind — I cannot say 

 whether of butterflies or moths. 



3 



