( xxvii ) 



what a weapon they were putting in the hands of an opponent 

 by not attempting some explanation of the fact, let alone not 

 referring to it, that in the one hundred and sixteen birds shot 

 and exaniined on Damba and Bugalla Islands no portion of 

 a butterfly was found ! 



As these dissections of Dr. Carpenter are probably not 

 known to entomologists, being contained in the " Reports of 

 the Sleeping-sickness Commission of the Royal Society," it 

 is advisable to make some comments on them.* 



The birds were shot in every month of the year except 

 from May to August inclusive, so that incidentally there should 

 have been some evidence of tasting experiments, but there 

 were none, and we may assume that none took place as the 

 younger being less experienced would be more easily shot, 

 and the larger proportion of those examined would be in their 

 first or second year. They comprised flycatchers (six species), 

 bee-eaters (three species), warblers, a chat, shrikes, bronze- 

 green cuckoos, insectivorous kingfishers, weaver-birds and a 

 stone-curlew. 



Unfortunately in the first fifty-two birds shot. Dr. Carpenter, 

 who was searching more particularly for evidence of tsetse- 

 flies, gives no details of the contents of these birds' stomachs ; 

 but he says of twenty-six bee-eaters the contents were mostly 

 Hymenoptera and dragon-flies, and of the other birds, king- 

 fishers, etc., no information except that no tsetse-flies were 

 found. 



The remaining sixty-four were more carefully examined — 

 fifty-three by the naked eye, and the remainder by a low-power 

 microscope. In the first fifty-two birds there mmj have been 

 remains of butterflies, but if we judge by the remaining sixty- 

 four it is highly improbable that there were. 



The bee-eaters mostly fed on bees and dragon-flies, the 

 aposematic crimson and blue bodies of the latter evidently 

 affording them no protection ! In the other birds mention 

 is made of " very small insects," " indistinguishable minute 

 insects," " winged ants," " two large Hymenoptera," " grass- 

 hoppers," etc., etc., and in one flycatcher " a single large 



* Reports of the Sleeping-sickness Commission of the Royal Society, 

 No. XII, p. 90; No. XIV, pp. 15, 16. 



