292 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL\HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. AXVIIT 
appearance due to his having to scrub his sides together. He evidently mean 
business and came on for some 8 to 10 yards when I, not fancying the job of 
trying to handle such a furious beast in a failing light, killed him. I have never 
seen this snake adopt such a curious and saggresive attitude before. He was 
beautifully marked and had a clear skin. The brown and buff showing each 
other up well and clearly. A female, non-gravid. 
A. G. FRERE, 1.4., Major. 
St. THomas’ Mount, 
Ath June 1921. 
No. XXX.—THE ENEMIES OF BUTTERFLIES. 
A note by Mr. C. Dover, under the above heading, appeared in Vol. XXVII, 
No. 3, pages 642-3 of the Journal. 
One of the most important of destroyers of butterflies has been ignored in the 
article, in the spider. Not only the spinners but also some of the hunting 
spiders (notably the jumping spiders) and those that lie in ambush among flowers 
{the crab spiders and the Peucetia) live very largely on butterflies. 
The house lizard is stated by Mr. Dover as only a casual butterfly eater. I 
think that creature would eat all lepidoptera freely, but from its habits it is mostly 
moths that come in its way. I have seen a large, vigorous specimen of a hawk- 
moth taken and devoured by the common gecko. 
I imagine that one reason why birds do not feed to a greater extent on butter- 
flies is their difficulty in catching them. The flight of butterflies is either erratic 
or very swift and there is so much more expanse of innutritious wing, that breaks 
off uselessly in the beak, than solid, satisfying body, that actually to arrive at 
possession must be rather difficult to achieve. Nevertheless, most field natura- 
lists have at times witnessed the attempts of birds to catch butterflies. Probably 
they desist when experience has taught that the result of a very occasional success 
does not justify the numberless futile efforts. 
C. E. C. FISCHER, 
PaLMANER, 5th June 1921. 
No, XXXI.—BUTTERFLY NOTES. 
The following instances of butterflies taken by me in new or unusual localities 
may be of interest. 
In Purulia (District Manbhum, Bihar and Orissa) I caught the following :— 
Appias wardi, M. 2 and Cirrochroa aoris, Db. (Q in battered condition) in 
June 1917 ; Pantoporia ranga, M. (perfect specimen) in April 1918. 
Mourbhanj State Orissa.—Lt.-Col. (then Captain) W. H. Evans, R. E., re- 
ferred in his ‘Notes on Indian butterflies ’ (Vol. XXII of the Journal, p. 770) to 
some butterflies caught by me in this State on the Megbasini hills. I subse- 
quently got from this same district, both ¢ and @Q of Poritia hewitsoni, M., 
while in a box recently sent to me by Mrs. E. G. Beckett of Sambalpur I got the 
following butterflies from these same hills :—Papilio helena cerberus, Fd. (2); 
Eulepis eudamippus, D.(Q). There were also in this box some further speci- 
mens of Apatura parisatis, God ; Papilio chaon, Wd.; Papilio paris, L. ; and 
Papilio doson axion, Fd. 
At Sea—Having left Bombay per 8.8. City of Karachi on 20th August 1919, 
we were off the coast of Arabia, but quite out of sight of it, when (on 26th August), 
a Vanessa cardui, L., came on board, and was brought to me by a friend to whose 
clothes it had clung. 
W. M. CRAWFORD, 1.c.s. 
BEFast, 25th May 1921. 
