Note 62 — Chapter IX

There is one interesting record which seems to suggest that Swinhoe's Bee-Eater (Melittophagus swinhoei) may exercise that discrimination in the butterflies it attacks which is demanded on the mimicry theory. Lt.-Col. Bingham on one occasion in Burma noticed this species hawking butterflies. He records that they took Papilio erithonius, P. sarpedon, Charaxes athamas, Cyrestis thyodamas, and Terias hecabe, and probably also species of the genera Prioneris, Hebomoia (Pierines), Junonia and Precis (Vanessids). And he goes on to say: "I also particularly noticed that the birds never went for a Danais or Euploea, or for Papilio macareus and P. xenocles, which are mimics of Danais, though two or three species of Danais, four or five of Euploea, and the two above-mentioned mimicking Papilios simply swarmed along the whole road[62]."