730 LT.-COL. N. MANDERS ON THE 



of prism binoculars focussed on the bird as it alighted in a tree. 

 As I have said, the wings were first stripped, and as they fell I 

 was able to make them out. I am not well acquainted with 

 butterflies, but to make my notes complete I referred to the 

 Museum and determined the butterfly as the commonest brown 

 one we see about the roads here, and I put it down as Euplosa 

 core. 



" On another occasion I saw a Common Swallow [Ilirundo 

 rustica) take a small white butterflj^, but 1 was too far away, and 

 without my glasses, to determine the species. The Swallow was 

 hawking near a piece of very dark jungle, near the l^uwara 

 Eliya lake, and the white butterfly was very conspicuous against 

 the background." 



Colonel Yerbury's note of this bird being seemingly partial to 

 Euplcea has already been alluded to. 



6. The Paradise Flycatchers and Biitterjties. 



Mr, John Pole, Scarborough, Maskeliya, 6000 feet, writes : — 

 " Maskeliya, 13.3.09. . . I seem to recall the attacks of the Odonata 

 and even Asylus (Diptera) on butterflies, but I never remember an 

 instance of a bird attacking one — I have watched the little Tailor- 

 birds eating the larvfe of Terias hecahe and that with seeming 

 distaste, and the Flycatchei'S at work on Diptera from the shelter 

 of some leafy tiee ; I have had so large an insect as Phyllades 

 consolisma taken from under my very nose by a Drongo, have 

 had moths beaten from a fence in the daytime stolen by Swallows 

 ere I could net them, but have never seen a bird in Ceylon carry 

 off" a butterfly. In England I have seen a Swallow carry off 

 Papilio machaon whilst I was following it ... I came out to this 

 Island in 1871." 



" Maskeliya, 17.3.09. Since writing on 13th we have had for two 

 days (16th and 17th) flights of butterflies, the first I have seen 

 this year. There has been in my garden for the last three months 

 a bird, which generally goes by the name of the ' Cotton Thief 

 (the Paradise Flycatcher). This bird occupies a jak tree within 

 twenty feet of my window, and foi' the last two days he has been 

 obtaining all his meals from the flights of butterflies, and although 

 I have never actually seen him catch one, I have seen him 

 circling from the tree in pursuit and the wings of the insects he 

 captures falling around the base of the tree within a radius of 

 twenty feet. Should they be of any service to you, I can send 

 you the wings of Appias paidina and varieties cJ and $ as 

 follows : — 



Upper left wing, 4 J 2 $ . 



Upper right wing, 5 c? 5 § , 



Lower left wing, 5 $ . 



Lower right wing, 2 S • 



" Maskelij^a, 14.4. ... I have only one more species of butterfly 

 to give yovi as its food — Papilio agamemnooi, and this is the only 



