88 THE COMMONER BUTTERFLIES. 



or less of a saffron tint, the distinct light lateral band more com- 

 monly macular than in V. cardui, the hairs notably shorter, be- 

 ing less than half as long as the spines, and the spinules of the 

 apical circlet not one third as long as the spine below the circlet. 

 Length 1^ inches. 



Chrysalis. — Ashen brown, more or less clouded with blackish 

 fuscous and with a dark stigmatal band, burt enlivened by some 

 brilliant more or less golden spots and dotted with black ; tuber- 

 cles brownish yellow except some golden ones in the constricted 

 base of the abdomen, the supralateral series extending upon the 

 eighth abdominal segment and sharply conical. Length more 

 than f inch. 



The eggs, which are barrel- shaped with nine thin high 

 vertical ribs and delicate green in color, are laid singly on 

 the npper surface of the food-plant and hatch in five or 

 six days. The caterpillar feeds on Urticaceons plants and 

 almost exclusively on true nettle (Urtica). On quitting 

 the Qgg the caterpillar partially devours it and then gener- 

 ally makes its way to another leaf — by preference one of 

 the half-opened ones at the summit of the plant — and fast- 

 ening together different jooints of the leaf makes a canopy 

 under which it lives, eatinsr onlv the surface of the leaf 

 beneath the web; later it catches the outer edges of a 

 larger leaf together with silk, and lives in the tube thus 

 formed, devouring the lower edges until it has eaten itself 

 out of house and home; it then forms another nest, first 

 Ijiting the stem partly through so as to cause it to droop. 

 The chrysalis often transforms in one of these bowers 

 after hanging for about ten days. This butterfly, again, 

 is an inhabitant of the oj^en field and is found all over 

 Europe as well as North America. Its life-history is much 

 like that of V. Mcntera, it being double-brooded and hi- 

 bernating principally as a butterfly, but also as a chrysalis. 

 About the second week in May the butterfly comes out of 

 winter quarters, and by the first week in June the chrysa- 

 lids begin to disclose their inmates, both sets of butterflies 



