Note 64 — Chapter IX

Col. Manders also brings forward evidence for these Danaids and Euploeas being eaten by Drongos and by the paradise flycatcher. Still more recently an interesting contribution to the matter has been made by Mr J. C. F. Fryer[64]. The Ashy Wood-swallow (Artamus fuscus) had been recorded on two occasions as having attacked Euploea core. Mr Fryer was fortunate in coming across this bird in the gardens at Peradeniya, near Kandy, at a time when Euploea core and Danais septentrionis were particularly abundant, and he watched a number of them systematically hawking these presumably unpalatable species. As he observes, "in Ceylon a resemblance to the genera Danais and Euploea is doubtfully of value; in fact in the neighbourhood of Wood-swallows it is a distinct danger." Fryer also noted that the mimetic forms of P. polytes were taken as well as the non-mimetic.