VALIDITY OF SOME FORMS OF MIMICRY. 701 



I have many times discovered in their stomachs the remains 

 of locusts, field-crickets, and also stick insects. 



[This Kestrel is rather smaller than the English bird and, like 

 it, is persecuted persistently. It may also feed on butterflies, but 

 it is so rare that its influence can be little felt ; it is entirely 

 confined to the small portion of indigenous forest now remaining.] 



2. Le Merle cuisinier {Oxynotns ferrugineus) [Lalage rufi- 

 venter.] 



Is essentially insectivorous ; I have seen these birds catching 

 Mantis religiosa and I have found in their stomachs Scarabsei 

 {Cratopus) and fragments of moths' wings. 



[This bird of late years has become exceedingly rare and is 

 verging on extinction. On my telling M. de Charmoy that I 

 had seen a pair in the forest, he congratulated me with as much 

 fei'vour as if I had seen a Dodo !] 



3. L'Oiseau Banane {Foudict erythrocephala). 



Frequents very persistently bananas when in flower, and 

 captures the minute insects which are attracted by the honey of 

 these flowers ; lives also on the petals of flowers and on small 

 lepidopterous larvag. [M. de Charmoy considers from his dis- 

 sections that this bird is incorrectly placed in this genus, which is 

 essentially a grain-feeding one.] 



4. All these species are indigenous and %o also are the two 

 species of Zosterops, Z. mauritiana and Z, chloronota, which live 

 almost entirely on the larvse of lepidoptera. I am unable to give 

 the names of the kinds they capture, but no doubt they take any 

 kind of catex'pillar. 



5. Le Coq des bois (Muscipeta borhonica) [^Trochocercus bo7'boni- 

 ciis]. Also indigenous ; is an inhabitant of the forests and is 

 found also along river-courses ; it chases diptera by preference 

 and particularly mosquitoes. 



6. Le Boulbul {Pycnonohts jocosus) was introduced in 1892 by 

 M. Gabriel Reynard and is noAV to be fovuid everywhere. It is 

 certainly to be found in great numbers, being often a plague. It 

 consumes the best fruits and vegetables and the blossoms of 

 fruit trees. I have often seen it hunting for moths, especially 

 for Ophiusida?, and in the fields of wild indigo it captures LycfenidaB. 

 [The most common butterfly in these fields is Lampides bcetica.] 



7. Le Martin (Acridotheres tristis) was introduced from the 

 Coromandel coast by M. Boucher des Friyes, and by Pierre a 

 Mainard (?) into Reunion, to destroy the crickets which ravaged 

 the islands in 1759. It is found in great numbers in newly 

 tilled fields hunting after all sorts of insects, and especially after 

 the eggs of crickets. 



The Fringillidse cannot be considered insect hunters though 

 they catch one on the wing Avhen they come across it. They 

 Piioc, ZooL, Soc— 1911, No. XLIX. 49 



