INSECT WINGS IN BIRDS' NESTS 291 



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.' 



In March, 1878, Colonel Bingham found a second nest 

 of the same species (M. coerulescens] 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. i . Portion of fore-wing of Papilio caunus. 

 2. Fore- and hind-wing of Mycalesis perseus. 

 3. Hind-wing of Papilio erithonius. 

 5. Portion of fore- wing of Jimonia orithyia. 

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

 seem to belong to some species of the Lycae- 

 nidae. 



10. Half of fore-wing of Char axes sp. (?) 

 1 1. Portion of hind-wing of Symphaedra dirtea ?. 

 ,, 12 to 17 are the wings of dragon-flies.' 1 

 A passage from another letter of Mr. de Niceville to 

 Colonel Bingham indicates in a different manner the 

 severity of the nearly unseen struggle for existence which 

 butterflies of certain genera pass through. The wings 



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

 Bingham 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 taungya 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 containing ' 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 

 (I.e. 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 NiceVille.' 



U 2 



