Birds In Relation to their Prey. 95 



were adepts at this {vide experiments 503 and 510). The 

 " batterers," on the other hand, which include Bulbids, some 

 Bush-Shrikes^ and a number of other birds, seize the part 

 tliey desire to remove and batter the insect against the 

 ground or a branch till the part comes off. The method is 

 well illustrated in experiment 558. The " combing '" of the 

 wings of a Mylotliris in experiment 557 is an unusual 

 operation. " Snipping," too, is rare. The Wood-Hoopoes 

 attempted it, sometimes unsuccessfully as regards the removal 

 of the wings, but successfully in removing an abdomen 

 from a thorax (experiment 503). Mr. G. A. K, Marshall, 

 however (Trans. Ent. Soc. 1909, p. 339), refers to the inter- 

 esting fact that certain Indian Bee-eaters "cut off" the 

 wings of butterflies, while African Bee-eaters swallow these 

 insects whole. Merops viridis and M. leschenaulti are 

 apparently the Indian species specially referred to, and 

 W. Davison (' Stray Feathers,' vi. 1878, p. G8) is quoted with 

 regard to the latter : — "• .... You hear a little click of the bill, 

 and as the bird flies off the pair of wings come slowly fluttering 

 to the ground.'-" It must be a very neat performance. The 

 wild Bee-eaters of my own observations (I have seen more 

 than a hundred attacks on butterflies by wild M. apiaster 

 and a few by M. persicns, Mel. Indlockoides, and M. meridto- 

 nalis) have always swallowed their prey whole, and my tame 

 European Bee-eater always did the same, merelv crushintr it 

 first. Lopliocerosoi these experiments (520-542) was also a 

 "swallower," but not quite a typical one; for, owino, I 

 suppose, to the length of its bill and the shortness of its 

 tongue, it had, in order to swallow, to throw the prey back 

 from the tip of its bill straight into its throat, and this trave 

 rise to the very amusing incidents of experiment 531. The 

 same applies to Bucorax, and I have already (' Ibis,' 1908 

 p. 407) described the very wasteful swallowing of figs in the 

 same way by Dycanistes. 



One of the neatest actions that I have witnessed on the 

 part of a bird was the capture of the Charaxes by the 

 Babbler in experiment 553. It darted out its foot as the 

 butterfly glanced past, and, seizing it most skilfully in its 



