EXPLANATION OP FOEM AND COLOURING. 215 



myself) who might be collecting butterflies, etc., for the actual experiments. 

 The following statement will, I think, show that for the few birds to which I 

 confined myself at any one time it was possible, even with this small amount 

 of assistance, to do a good deal in the way of variety. 



Our commoner Orthoptera — Locustids, Acridians, Crickets, Mantises, etc., 

 in great variety — have usually formed the daily piece de resistance for such 

 birds as cared for them (that is to saj- nearly all), while portions of termite- 

 nests containing commonly, in addition to the ordinary workers, which were 

 not liked, females and larvae, which were more readily eaten, were placed 

 daily, broken up, in the trays, the latter having been first filled each 

 morning with leaf-mould and rotten wood. This was brought straight from 

 the forest close by, and often contained much small insect-life of a kind that 

 would have been difficult to obtain otherwise. It had to be discontinued in 

 wet weather owing to its making the cages too damp. These foods were con- 

 stantly supplemented by such other abundant insects as happened to be in 

 season, as cockroaches, migratory locusts, both larval and winged, an Asilid 

 fly [Alcimus ruhiginosus) that is abundant during the spring and summer, 

 house-flies and other Diptera, as also hive-bees, rewards being given to natives 

 bringing me the latter insects in any quantity during my time of greatest 

 experimentation with bee-eaters and drongos, the abundant and gregarious 

 ant-lion imago, Formicaleo leucospihis, dragon-flies {Orthetrum spp.) when 

 plentiful, winged termites, SjMngomorplia cJdorea, Nyctipao macrops, Cyli- 

 gramina latona and other common Noctuidse — and so on. Of the moths, the 

 SpJiingomorpha has been sometimes so abundant on the banana-branches 

 hanging in the verandah and on fallen guavas or other fruit as to enable 

 a one-pound tea tin to be filled with them evening after evenino- in the 

 space of perhaps half an hour. 



Of butterflies, Chara.ves hrutus and C. candiope have also sometimes been 

 so abundant as to enable me to feed them to some extent to the birds, and it 

 will be seen that during a portion of the time when I was experimenting 

 on swallows, I was able to give them Pyrameis cardid in such numbers that it 

 proved quite a large item in their daily food. Coleopterous food in the adult 

 state — that is, of species that the bird would have eaten — would have been 

 difficult to obtain in any great variety without the employment of much 

 additional labour, but Neptunides polychroiis and other C^etoniidge were 

 collected during their seasons of abundance, killed and thrown in to the larger 

 birds, Anomala and the other Rutelid beetles that are such a pest to our 

 gardens were supplied in numbers, and such larv?e, mainly Coprids, as were 

 dug up in the garden or could be obtained from manui^e-heaps were also 

 given. 



The Coprid larvee were disliked, but a few might be eaten if placed in the 

 cages (as they usually were) before other food had been supplied. The larvse 

 and pupse of the Cetoniid beetle, Rliabdotis aidica, on the other hand, were far 



