ApnllOT 
Having got into position before sunset 1 fell confident 
of a good chance this time. And then the moon rose 
And when I looked through the scope sight on my rifle, 
I could sec nothing but brilliant lighll Kills arc never in 
the perfect place, and I had made allowance for several 
factors. If he came now 1 would be useless, just an 
interested spectator 
At about 10 30 PM 1 heard some Eland disturbed and 
then there lie was. standing on the far side of the kill I 
waited until he came round to my side and shot him with 
a soft-nosed .375 bullet at about 1 5 yards. He gave one 
loud grunt and ran away I No more noise, so 1 went home 
to bod wondering if I had missed (Looking lor a possibly 
wounded lion in thick bush at night is NOT "living 
dangerously"; it is plain stupidity ) 1 found him at 5:30 
nest morning within 100 yards of the kill with a bullet 
hole in his lungs. 
There was tremendous excitement amongst our 
employees and glee as wc weighed him and skinned 
hun He had a large golden/auburn mane with no blemish 
anywhere, nor any disability of any kind. All his tcclh 
were line, lie w eighed 33S lbs and die straight-line length 
before skinning was 0 ft 2 in. Height at withers was 3 R6 
in and lus skull was 1 4 7/8 X 0 3/8 in A very fine spccuncu 
■hat I had mounted on black felt by Messrs Zimmerman 
in Nairobi 
Afternote: 
The mounting or the lion skill on black tell laid cosl £50 
which, when added to the £550 Ihc lion had cost in dead 
cattle, brought the pnee of the w hole venture to £600 
Some years later when I needed a lump sum to purchase 
new rams or a bull. I decided to oftcr ihc skin to 
Zimmerman again forcommission sale Whilst examining 
the skin laid oul over a chair and die floor in his salesroom, 
an American spoilsman tvilh wife and daughter ‘in low' 
approached through the French doors. Without any 
introduction or preamble ihc man exclaimed. “Honey, 
that's Ihc lion I shod" Without a word 1 gave Paul 
Zimmerman a ivmk and bolted oul of another door, 
leaving him to handle the silnation. That evening he 
telephoned to say that (he American had bought the 
skin for— you may have guessed— £6501 This ncally 
covered all inv losscsaud Mr Zimmerman 'scoinmissioii 
Apparently, the one and only lion the American had 
shol on a licensed Safari was a poor and undersized 
specimen, so lie bought mine and sold his own. truly, 
fact is stranger Ilian Action. 
K D Morgan. Grafton Oak. Kiipcck. Hereford. HR20BP. 
England. 
NOTES 
UNUSUAL CITRUS SWALLOWTAIL 
BEHAVIOUR 
The close dependence of buncrflics on plants is well 
known: adull butterflies feed on flowers and frail and 
Ihe caterpillars feed on plant leaves. Most people also 
realise lhal particular species of butterflies have specific 
larval foodplant requircraems. and dial Ihc recognition 
of the correct roodplanl. by an egg laying female or a 
feeding caterpillar, is cued by chemicals in Ihe plant 
Rather less well known arc the several uses thal 
butterflies make of particular plant chemicals Thcdassic 
example here is that of Ibe danaine or milkweed 
caterpillars which store poisonous chemicals called 
cardenolidcs from their milkweed foodplanls as a 
protection against predators. The poisons persist 
through the pupal stage into the adull butterfly and 
predators which make Ihe mistake of caring an adult ore 
violently ill Male danatnes also collect other chemicals 
called pvrrolizldinc alkaloids (PAs) from dead and 
withered borages and other plants. They then do a bit of 
chemistry on the PAs. knocking ofT a methyl group, and 
turn them inlo sex pheromones (or perfumes) which help 
to persuade females to maicwitb them Aggregarionsof 
male danatnes on dead borages were commonly seen 
long before the significance of this behaviour was 
understood 
All of wluch may or may not be relevant lo an unusual 
observation 1 made last June in Kilifi. I noticed from a 
distance thal a Citrus swallowtail ( Papilla demodocus) 
was paying a loi of attention lo a milkweed shrub 
t ( 'n lutrvpis jiiganlta) in c ur garden. Curious lo see why. 
I approached and to mj great surprise saw that ihc 
butterfly, which was a male, was apparently aiiempring 
lo mate wilh a withered and spent seed pod on the shrub. 
It was curling its abdomen around and grasping the edge 
of lire pod with its claspers (normally used lo hold Ihe 
female during maiing). It then flow off. circled the plant 
for some tinny seconds and landed on the pod again, 
repealing ils abdomen-curling and clasping behaviour 
on the same withered pod. This sequence of cvems was 
repealed on another Tour occasions within ihc next five 
minutes before the butterfly finally gave up and flew off 
I do tiol know how long flits behaviour had been going 
on before my observations started 
There was no doubt whatsoever that the focus of 
llic swallowtail's attention was Ihe milkweed pod li was 
also clear lhal whatever attracted tl lo Ihe pod also 
siimulniod maiing movements in Ihe butterfly, with ihe 
abdomen curling and clasping repealed on each occasion 
lhal it landed on ihe pod Nothing is known of ihc 
pheromone biology of Paplllo demodocus, and this 
species docs noi have a reputation for disiasicfulncss 
to predators or of sequestering secondary plant 
compounds for defense or reproduction Yci ii seems 
that some son of chemical interaction must have been 
involved Ii is noi at all unusual for plan! compounds lo 
resemble Ihc reproductive hormones or pheromones of 
animals (many plants contain oestrogen ). and the most 
likely explanation is that a chemical in the pod is veiy 
similar to a pheromone of i he Cilnts swallowtail and ihal 
this stimulated Ihc maiing behaviour II may also be 
relevant lhal P demodocus is 0 gregarious rooster, 
normally a habit of chemically protected species 
Ian J Gordon. Kipepco Project, Box 57. Kilifi. Kenya 
