6 Mr. J. C. W. Kershaw on 



I have two or three times seen capture the little black- 

 and-yellow Skipper, Telieota bamhiiste, Moore, by the head. 



The large green Mantis, Hierodula sanssureii, W. F. 

 Kirby, our commonest species, apparently catches anything 

 he can get hold of. I have kept Mantid;e and fed them 

 with many species of butterflies, none of which they 

 refused, but data obtained from creatures in captivity are 

 not, I think, very reliable, as under these circumstances 

 they often take food which in a natural state they would 

 probably reject. But I have seen this Mantis in the open 

 on a shrub, eating the two species of Ewplcea before men- 

 tioned. He is a very bold insect, and, even in a wild 

 state, seldom refuses any butterfly offered to him. 



One of the worst enemies of the Hespeviidte is a large 

 hairy species of (Asilid ?) fly, which seizes them and drives 

 its proboscis into the thorax. Either it is very fearless or 

 it cannot easily disengage its weapon from its prey, for I 

 have often kept stirring one up with a stick, when it 

 would merely fly to another leaf close by, still holding its 

 victim. These flies also kill a moderate-sized Cicada in 

 great numbers. 



In the last two months (August and September) I have 

 three times seen butterflies seized by the tongue by ants, 

 as they probed a flower. On one occasion an ant seized 

 Ne'ptis curynomc by the tip of the tongue, and the butter- 

 fly immediately flew away with the ant hanging on it. 

 About half-an-hour afterwards I captured the Neptis with 

 the ant still clinging to its tongue. The other instances 

 were both Telicota bambuste, and each was caught by the 

 tip of the tongue by an ant. 



I should be inclined to think that the birds here account 

 for very few imagines, comparatively speaking, whatever 

 they may do in the larva and pupa line. The only birds 

 I have seen attack butterflies, and generally miss them, 

 are sparrows (our common sparrow is Passer montanus), 

 the green Bulbul, Pycnonotus sinensis, the black Drongo, 

 Buchanga atra aud the Paradise-flycatcher, Terpsiplione 

 princeps. During five years I have, perhaps, seen a dozen 

 attacks on butterflies by birds, and only seen them cap- 

 tured two or three times. Speaking from my own limited 

 experience I should say imagines here have few enemies, 

 and that those few inflict very slight damage. Unfavour- 

 able climatic conditions seem to be most inimical to 

 them. {Gf. Trans. Ent. Soc. 1895, pp. 437-8.) 



