38 Mr, 0. F. M. Swynnerton on 



of C. B, with the same green gloss and long tail, had 

 a shorter bill and her relationship was less obvious, as she 

 was timid and kept in the background. C had a shorter 

 tail and a short but red bill and a blue head. A takes the 

 lead in everything, from bowing to attempting to demolish 

 the cage. He is probably the male parent, B the female 

 parent, and C the young bird. 



I placed in the cage a number of grasshoppers and 

 locuslids of various species intermingled with ten individuals 

 of the common, fairly large Noctuid moth Sjjhingoinorpha 

 cMorea, very greatly liked by my birds generally, a small 

 heap of larval migratory locusts, and twenty-four butterflies, 

 also the sluggish and unpleasant-seeming whitish day-flying 

 moth, Olapa ymda. 



They were put in at 9 a.m. Shortly afterwards the birds 

 began to feed, selecting only the Sphingomorphas. At 

 10 A.M. the locust-heap was still fairly intact, all the 

 Sphingomorphas were gone, wings and all (only one individual 

 wing left), the Olapa lay unmolested though conspicuous 

 (probably known and disliked by the birds in their wild 

 state), and nearly all the grasshoppers had been eaten. Six 

 were still left. 



At 12.20 P.M. all the locusts and the remaining six grass- 

 hoppers w^ere gone completely, with the exception of one or 

 two insignificant fragments. The butterfly results were 

 unreliable, for the weather was unusually hot and dry and 

 the thorax, at least, of all but the form Papilio angolanus was 

 already faii'ly dry and the wings stiffening before the 

 experiment began. Still a Hamanumida dcedahis, a Precis 

 natalensis (wet-season form), a Precis archesia (wet-season 

 form) , two Precis artaxia, a Precis ceryne, a Precis cehrene 

 (out of three, the others much broken up, but very dry in 

 any case), and a Precis bodpis, var. madagascariensis, and a 

 Belenois mesentina had been eaten (with the exception, in 

 some cases, of battered-off fragments. The moth Olapa, the 

 four Papilio angolanus, the Pierine butterflies Belenois 

 severina (two), Teracolits pldegyas, MylotJiris sp., Terias sp. 

 (two), and Pinacopterijx pigea, also the only Acrcea of the 



