ORIENTAL BIRDS EATING BUTTERFLIES 287 



the course of the Akya Chaung, a feeder of the Haun- 

 draw River, and crossed the little stream some twenty or 

 more times in the first six or seven miles before turning 

 up the hill to the Taungyah Pass in the Dawnat Range. 

 From the outskirts of Kawkaraik right up to Thinganyina- 

 ung on the other side of the Pass, the road goes through 

 dense evergreen forest, and consequently the collecting is 

 very good on this road, both for insects and birds. To-day, 

 the day being hot, butterflies, bees, and dragon-flies 

 swarmed, and at every opening of the Chaung I found 

 crowds seated on the damp sand apparently sucking up 

 the moisture. Collecting as I went, it was past eleven 

 o'clock before I got to the foot of the Pass. I was hot 

 and a bit tired, so I sat down on a fallen tree to rest, just 

 before crossing the Akya Chaung for the last time. I had 

 not been seated many minutes, looking at the swarms of 

 butterflies, bees, and dragon-flies, which were flitting about 

 or sitting on the sands, when my attention was attracted 

 by a bird, a bee-eater (Merops swinhoei), which, swooping 

 down from a tree overhead, caught a butterfly, a Cyrestis, 

 within a few paces of me. The bee-eater seemed to catch 

 the butterfly with ease, and I distinctly heard the snap of 

 its bill. Then, holding the butterfly crossways, the bird 

 flew back to the tree, and sat still for a minute or so, then 

 came a little jerk of the head, and the wings of the butter- 

 fly came fluttering to the ground, while the body was 

 gulped. On the same branch some four or five more 

 bee-eaters of the same species were seated, and as I sat 

 very still, one after another these birds swooped close to 

 me, sometimes after a butterfly, sometimes at a bee or 

 a dragon-fly. More than once I saw a bird miss a butter- 

 fly, when the latter would dodge and try to get away 

 among the bushes of the dense undergrowth around, but 

 only very seldom was this successful, for the bird would 

 hover and twist and turn in hot pursuit, and generally 

 managed to catch the insect. I was greatly interested, 

 for though I had seen both bee-eaters and king-crows 

 (Dicrurus) go for butterflies and moths, this was the 

 first time I had witnessed a continuous hawking of butter- 

 flies on the part of birds. I sat for nearly half-an-hour 



