Abstract
MR. LATTER still believes the capture of butterflies in flight by birds to be “exceptional so far as this country is concerned” (p. 273). Closer observation would assure him of the contrary, I think. Why is the case he mentions “probably to be regarded as a mistake on the part of the bird,” when it is admitted that the captor “only relinquished its hold in consequence of a luckily-aimed stick”? Why assume that the thrower of the stick knew better what the house-martin ought to eat than the bird itself? In July 1900 I saw a house-sparrow in my garden attack a common brown butterfly on the wing (species unidentified). The chase lasted three minutes, by my watch, in the air the whole time, the butterfly doubling and turning again and again, and the sparrow after it, in a manner most remarkable for a bird without much hovering-power. Eventually both butterfly and sparrow went into a box hedge, and the sparrow came out immediately afterwards, eating the butterfly; he finished it with much apparent satisfaction on a branch of an apple-tree, and cleaned the scales off his beak on the twig. Sparrows are not, as a rule, insect-eaters, but J. H. Gurney gives, as a result of 694 dissections, under the heading “occasional food,” these entries:—
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VELEY, L. Birds Capturing Butterflies in Flight. Nature 65, 299 (1902). https://doi.org/10.1038/065299b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/065299b0
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