( xxxvii ) 



Dr. F. A. DiXEY read a paper, communicated by Major 

 Keville Manders, R. A.M.C, entitled " Some Breeding Ex- 

 periments on Catopsilia ijyranthe, and Notes on the Migration 

 of Butterflies in Ceylon." 



The President said that his friend Professor E. A. Minchin 

 of University College, London, had communicated the follow- 

 ing observation of an attack made by a bird upon a species of 

 Elymnias : — " Apropos of the footnote on p. 9 of your address 

 at the Internat. Zool. Congr. at Berlin (1901), the following 

 observation may interest you. It was made upon the 

 common Elymnias undularis, at Aska in the Ganjam District 

 of Madras, when I first went out, and this butterfly was then 

 a novelty to me. As you doubtless know, the $ mimics 

 Danais chrysip'pus, while the $ is totally different. It has 

 rather skulking habits, keeps close in the shelter of the 

 thickets, settles frequently, and seldom emerges into the 

 open. When it does it soon takes cover again. One day I 

 was pursuing a S , and succeeded in driving it out from 

 amongst the bushes into the open, and was running it down 

 and was on the point of capturing it, when a bird swooped 

 down and carried off the butterfly right in front of my net. 

 I do not know the species of bird, but it was of small or 

 moderate size. It is curious how many people deny that birds 

 eat butterflies." 



The President then read part of a letter recently received 

 from Mr. J. C. Kershaw, one of the Fellows of the Society, 

 living at Macao. The following observation throws much 

 light upon the struggle for life endured by one species of 

 butterfly at this locality : — *' There is a cuckoo here (Cuculus 

 micropterus) which certainly accounts for some species of 

 butterfly being rare. Having shot several I found the 

 stomachs crammed with what were obviously butterfly larvae, 

 some almost entire, and after a search found the same kind on 

 a banyan. They were Rhopcdocampta benjamini, a Skipper 

 which I had always accounted very rare here, but of which I 

 now have a good series. At intervals through the summer I 

 shot these cuckoos, and always found them stuffed with 

 caterpillars, mostly the larvje of this large Skipper, which has 

 a bright red and black head, unmistakable amongst the 



PROC, ENT. SOC. LOND., III. 1904. D 



