before the birds succeeded in getting the bodies of the butterflies, although these were sitting quietly on the ground."[1] Mr. Riley Fortune states that he has often seen Starlings chasing butterflies.[2] The Stonechat greedily devours butterflies, as I have seen in the aviaries of Dr. Butler. Zehntner on different occasions found seven Painted Lady butterflies in the mouths of Alpine Swifts (Cypselus melba), as recorded in the 'Catalogue des Oiseaux de la Suisse.'[3] Such an observation did not miss the lynx eyes of Jefferies: "I once saw a Flycatcher rush after a buff-coloured moth, which fluttered aimlessly out of a shady recess; he snapped it, held it a second or two while hovering in the air, and then let it go. Instantly a Swallow swooped down, caught the moth, and bore it thirty or forty feet high, then dropped it, when, as the moth came slowly down, another Swallow seized it and carried it some yards and then left hold, and the poor creature after all went free. I have seen other instances of Swallows catching good-sized moths to let them go again."[4] These moths were probably inedible species, and were thus protected, at least at this stage of their existence. Mr. Furneaux, referring to the common and well-known white butterflies of the British Pieridæ, observes: "It is remarkable that we are so plagued with 'whites' seeing that they have so many enemies. Many of the insect-feeding birds commit fearful havoc among their larvae, and often chase the perfect insect on the wing."[5]
Another writer states: "At no stage in their lives are lepidopterous insects free from the attacks of enemies. In the egg state they fall a prey to beetles and small birds, and as larvæ they are extremely liable to receive a deadly thrust with the ovipositor (or sting) of an ichneumon.... The enemies of the imago, whether butterflies or moths, are numerous. Birds, Bats, dragonflies, &c, pursue and harass them whenever they happen to meet with them."[6] Fungi are also parasitic on butterflies.[7] But the discrepancy in experience as found among
- ↑ 'Organic Evolution,' Eng. Transl., p. 118.
- ↑ 'Ornithology in relation to Agriculture and Horticulture' (1893), p. 139.
- ↑ Cf. Gurney, 'Trans. Norf. and Norw. Nat. Soc.,' vol. vi. p. 259.
- ↑ 'Wild Life in a Southern Country,' p. 147.
- ↑ 'Butterflies and Moths' (British), p. 144.
- ↑ F.O. Pickard-Cambridge, 'Roy. Nat. Hist.,' vol. vi. p. 80.
- ↑ J.C. Rickard, ' Entomologist,' vol. xxix. p. 170.
