The Bionomics of South Africmi Insects. 365 



serim." " At the bottom of the hole, which was about 

 eighteen inches deep, was a soft pad composed of flies and 

 butterflies' wings, mixed with small pieces of rotten wood." 

 lu March 1878, Col, Bingham found a second nest of 

 the same species {M. ccerulcsccns) which he sent to the late 

 Mr. de Niceville in order to ascertain the species of insects 

 which had been made use of. Mr. de Niceville wrote as 

 follows : — 



'•' The fragments of butterfly wings you send are as 

 follows : — 



No. 1. Portion of fore-wing of Papilio caunus. 

 „ 2. Fore- and hind- wing oi Mycalcsis locrscits. 

 „ 3. Hind-wing of Papilio crithonius. 

 ,, 5. Portion of fore-wing oi Junonia orithyici. 

 ,, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, too fragmentary to make out, but 

 seem to belong to some species of the Lyci&nidai. 

 „ 10. Half of fore-wing of Charcues sp. ?. 

 „ 11. Portion of hind-wing oi SymphiBclrci clirtea $. 

 „ 12 to 17 are the wings of dragon-flies."* 

 A passage from another letter of Mr. de Niceville to 

 Colonel Bingham indicates in a diflerent manner the 

 severity of the nearly unseen struggle for existence which 

 butterflies of certain genera pass through. The wings 

 sent by Col. Bingham were found by him in 1888. Mr. 

 de Niceville wrote concerning them : — 



" See p. 275 of vol. ii of my 'Butterflies.' Ferguson found 

 a single wing of Charaxcs schreiheri in Travancore on the 

 ground. It is curious that the only record so far of the 



* In the Zoologist (4th Series, vol v, 1901, pp. 224, 225) Colonel 

 Binj.;ham states that he found, on April 23, 1899, a nest of the same 

 species of pigmy falcon in a hole on the under-side of a branch of 

 a dead tree in a deserted taungyah alongside the high-road leading 

 from Thabeitkyin, on the banks of the Irrawaddy above Mandalay, 

 to Mogok, the site of the famous Ruby Mines of Upper Burma. The 

 hole had evidently been made by a Barbet. It was 15 inches long, 

 and at the end was slightly enlarged into an oval chamber contain- 

 ing "a fairly firm pad of chips of wood, a few leaves, with an upper 

 stratum quite two inches thick, composed almost entirely of the 

 wings of cicadas, with a few butterfly and moth wings interspersed 

 therein." There were no eggs or nestlings. " Further south, in 

 Tenasserim," Colonel Bingham continues (1. c. p. 225), " I found the 

 eggs of this falcon in a precisely similar situation early in April, 

 as well as I can remember. That nest was composed almost entirely 

 of butterfly wings." Colonel Bingham informs me that the last- 

 named nest was the one, described above in the text, which was found 

 in March 1878, and furnished the wings named by de Nicdville. 



