78 Mr. C. F. M. Swynnerton on 



Acrgeas. This is illustrated most strikingly in all my ex- 

 periments on young L. leucomelas^ and in the present experi- 

 ment adult and experienced L. melanolencus also only began 

 to refuse these butterflies when he had already eaten the 

 equivalent in weight of very many Danaidas. 



This experiment is altogether of particular interest, for 

 the way in which it supplements and explains my earlier 

 and far less perfect, yet very striking, ex[)eriments on 

 Lophoceros leucomelas. To-day I did what I did not do to 

 leucomelas — I carried the filling of the bird's stomach well 

 beyond the point at which Danaidas, &c., are refused, and 

 so long as it was kept filled to beyond that point so long 

 would the bird have continued to refuse those low-grade 

 insects — it might be for hours or days together, excepting 

 after the bringing up of a pellet. 



Conversely, so long as the fiUing-up process was not carried 

 and kept beyond that point by the presence of pleasanter 

 insects, so long would Danaida, &c., have been continuously, 

 wath short intervals for subsidence, been preyed upon. 



542. Aug. 20. — Ate several PJii/saUs-hmts (7 or 8) and 

 refused to accept another; refused, then took and threw away 

 a ripe fruit of the tall Ebenaceous forest-tree, MaJ>a mualala. 

 Ate several pieces of meat (as the other day, the meat again 

 running about 20 pieces to the ounce), and refused the 

 next piece ; ate eagerly a few grasshoppers. Then refused 

 an Acrcea areca ? and an Amauris alhimaculata, but only a 

 minute or two later, already ready for them, took, crushed, 

 and swallowed both. 



I have several times tried the bird with Mala fruit, and, 

 even when fairly hungry, he has- xef Jised to eat it. One has 

 lain uneaten in the cage all day, though Pliysalis fruits have 

 been eaten at intervals whenever the bird was hungry enough. 

 That wdien still hungrier he might have eaten the Maba fruit, 

 too, is suggested by the fact that I have occasionally found 

 these fruits in the stomachs of wild birds. This, again, 

 sugo-ests that we need not regard all things found in 

 the stomach of a wild bird as necessarily highly liked by 

 it. How do we know, in any particular instance in which 



