56 Mr. C. F. M. Swynuertou on 



have taken them, seemed to be as much as to say " Don't 

 dare to touch those ! " and E accepted the rebuke in a 

 properly deferential spirit. 



D then ate a seventh Papilio lycens (I doubt i£ he would 

 have eaten any, had it not been for E's provocation of him !), 

 also a Precis cehrene. He dropped the next and E picked it 

 up and ate it, as also six more in quick succession, without 

 further repression by D. 



519. April 3. — E ate readily (hnd much other food in the 

 cage) four male and one female HypoUmnas misippvs. Ten 

 minutes later she ate with equal readiness a fifth male and a 

 second female. Each butterfly had a hind wing attached. 

 The ten minutes' interval was to give time for unpleasant 

 internal effects, if any, to be realized by the bird. Obviously 

 the butterfly ranked fairly high in the Hoopoe's estimalion, 

 which is interesting in view of its close mimicry of the highly 

 unpleasant Danaida chrysippiis. 



These birds also escaped. They were as expert lock- 

 pickers as their predecessors. In the case of each of the 

 two batches the birds did not fly away at once, but remaine<l 

 in the verandah picking up the insects that had dropped 

 from the cages generally (for I had many insectivorous birds), 

 and were quite friendly, allowing an approach to within a 

 yard. It was only on my definitely attempting to recapture 

 them that they flew right away, uttering their harsh chattering 

 note. 



LOPHOCEROS LEUCOMELAS (Licht.). 



The interesting point about these birds was the enormous 

 numbers that they would eat of insects, one or two of which 

 sufficed to nauseate the average bird unless he was sufiicientlv 

 hungry, and his digestion sufficiently active to deal with 

 them. 



Two factors probably contributed to this : (I) that Lopho- 

 ceros, like Bucorax, probably is able to eat Danaida, Amaiiris, 

 Acroia, &c., up to a later point in the filling up of its stomach 

 than is the average bird ; (2) the fact (which I will deal 

 with more fully later) that any rapidly-digesting bird is able 



