PALATABILITY OP SOME BRITISH INSECTS. »4y 



Larvee of 8aw-fly (Cladkcs viminalis). 



These larvse were yellow with black spots. They were sent to 

 me by Mr. Taylor. 



Aug. 19, 1910. Refused without tasting by Yellow-crowned 

 Hangnest, Crested Bulbul, Rlue-bird, and Fantailed Flycatcher. 



Tasted but lejected by Black-winged Grackle, Harmonious 

 Shrike-Thrush, Black-chinned Laughing Thrush, and Green 

 Toucanet. 



Taken by Greater Spotted Woodpecker, placed in a hole in a 

 stump and haiximered, but ultimately flicked away and lost. 



Two taken and eaten after much pecking and tasting by a 

 Shama. One eaten fairly readily by a Dial Bird ; but another 

 bird of the same species rejected a specimen after tasting and 

 flicking it from his beak about twenty times. 



Wood- Ant {Formica ritfa). 



May, 1910. Taken and eaten with avidity by the following 

 birds : — Pearl-spotted Owl ; Orange-headed Ground-Thrush ; 

 Dial Bird ; Shama ; Black-headed Sibia ; Blue-bird ; Pekin Robin ; 

 Harmonious Shrike-Thrush ; Spotted Oriole ; Larger Hill Mynah ; 

 Black- winged Grackle; Yellow-crowned Hangnest; Greater 

 Spotted Woodpecker. 



A Capuchin Monkey also ate one after another, picking them 

 up in his hands and gobbling them as fast as possible. 



Several specimens thrown into a cage containing three Wall 

 Lizards were tasted by two of them, but i-ejected at once without 

 being damaged in any way by the tasting. 



Most of the birds showed no signs of objecting to the taste of 

 the ants, or even of perceiving anything peculiar in their flavour. 

 The Pearl-spotted Owl, however, shook his head, and the Spotted 

 Oriole wiped his V)eak on the perch after eating them. The 

 Pekin Robin and the Black-winged Grackle wiped the ants upon 

 their wings, presumably to remove the formic acid. It is inter- 

 esting to find the same device practised by two species so unlike 

 one another. 



I found that the birds, like the monkey, would eat as many 

 of these ants as were given to them. 



The unavoidable conclusion that these insects are palatable is 

 rather sui^prising in view of the frequency with which ants of 

 different kinds are mimicked in the tropics by Orthoptera, Coleo- 

 ptera, and other insects, as well as by spiders. ^Nevertheless, it 

 corroborates the opinion put forward by McCook and amplified 

 and endorsed by myself in 1909*, before these experiments were 

 made, that ant-mimicry is mainly serviceable as a protection 

 against the predatory Hymenoptera of the family Pompilidae, which 

 provision their nests with Arthropoda of various kinds, excepting 

 ants, and are certainly the direst enemies that spiders possess. 



* Journ. Linn. Soc, Zool. xxx. pp. 265-268. 



