LARENTID.-E—THERA. 355 



brown, tbickly dusted with glistening white ; hind margin 

 edged with a brown Uae ; cilid gt-ey-browu. Female decidedly 

 larger, the abdomen shorter but thicker ; the ground colour 

 often paler and the markings more distinct, but most un- 

 stable in these respects. 



Undersides of all the wings silky grey-brown ; on the fore 

 wings is a faint discal black dot, and the second line is sug- 

 gested by a following pale shade ; on the hind wings is a 

 black central dot, also one or two most oliscure, middle, trans- 

 verse darker curved lines. Body and legs brown, or smoky- 

 brown. 



Alvvays extremely variable ; the ground colour ranging, as 

 already stated, from pale umbreous, to greyish-brown, but 

 also less frequently to dark umbreous and grey-brown, or to 

 whitish-brown, fulvous, fawn-colour, or very pale grey-brown; 

 the markings usually distinct — umbreous, red-brown, black- 

 brown, or yellow-brown — ordinarily well delined, but some- 

 times hardly darker than the ground colour, sometimes clear 

 and smooth, but often having the nervures so darkened as to 

 divide the central baud into a series of blotches with black 

 margins; the l>and itself sometimes tolerably Ijroad, occa- 

 sionally reduced to a slender stripe, but always tapering, and 

 usually maintaining its normal relative proportions. How- 

 ever indistinct it may become from agreement with the 

 ground colour, the portion in contact with the dorsal margin 

 is nearly always well marked from its edging of whiter cloud- 

 ing. Occasional specimens, especially in Scotland, approach 

 to black or brown-black, but there does not appear to be any 

 distinct tendency to unicolorous blackness in this species, as 

 in so many others. On the other hand, specimens may rarely 

 be seen of the red or brown colouring in which the central 

 band has wholly disappeared, but the nervures are blackened. 

 Another form, perhaps even more rare, is that in which the 

 central band has wholly disappeared except that a small elon- 

 gated spot remains near the costa, enclosing a discal dot. 



On the wing at the end of May and through .lunr ; more 



