II. Butterfly-destroyers in Southern China. By John C. 

 W. Kershaw, F.L.S., F.E.S. 



[Read November 16th, 1904.] 



Perhaps the creatures which in this district destroy 

 or injure the largest number of butterfly imagines are 

 lizards, particularly one species (Ccdotes versicolor, Daud.), 

 which climbs up into the clumps of Lantana camera, a 

 profusely flowering plant or shrub which grows here on 

 most waste ground. Probably the greater part of their 

 prey consists of Hesperiidze, three or four species of which 

 haunt the flowers of the Lantana in immense numbers. 

 Other reptile foes to butterflies are probably the tree- 

 frogs, and possibly the very numerous small snakes which 

 are always climbing in the tops of the bushes. 



Spiders' webs account for some mishaps to butterflies, 

 but they are not invariably eaten ; at other times species 

 which are reckoned most distasteful as food of other 

 animals are seized and eaten at once, according, I suppose, 

 as the owner of the web is hungry or otherwise. 1 have 

 seen our large black-and-yellow spider {Epeira metadata 

 of Donovan's " Insects of China ") eating Enplcea amymone, 

 Godt., caught in his web. He had attacked and consider- 

 ably injured the lower side of the abdomen and part of the 

 thorax ; but when I took the butterfly from him, examining 

 it laid flat in my hand, the insect suddenly flew up to the 

 top of a large banyan tree, where it settled. One would 

 hardly imagine even a Euplcea would have much life in it 

 after being so badly mauled. The same spider I have 

 seen eating Papilio dissimilis, L. ( = clytia,\j.,=p)anope,\j?), 

 the black-and-yellow form. Also at different times Neptis 

 earynome, L., and Euploia midamus, L., but on the whole 

 it is not common to see a butterfly in a spider's web. I 

 might mention that I saw this spider devouring a small 

 bat, about eight inches across the wings, caught overnight 

 in his web. 



There is also here a small but thickset white spider 

 which usually conceals itself in white flowers, and which 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1905. — PART I. (MAY) 



