TRIFID.E. ,7g 



with very ample fore wiugs ; abdomen much stouter, but 

 almost pointed, and furnished with a very small anal tuft ; 

 antenna? threadlike. 



Underside of the fore wings dull dark red, shading 00; 

 paler to the dorsal margin ; discal cell filled with long pros- 

 trate hair-scales ; beyond the middle is a conspicuous slender 

 oblique black transverse stripe. Hind wings rather uniformly 

 purple-red ; the basal portion covered with long scales ; dorsal 

 region paler ; toward the apex is a black line as the com- 

 mencement of a transverse stripe. Body and legs bright 

 chocolate-red, the hinder pair of legs bearing on their upper 

 side a long and conspicuous dense tuft of deep chocolate-red 

 hair-scales. 



Not very variable, except that in certain localities— as in 

 Essex — the ground colour is often paler, sometimes becoming 

 drab, but with a dusting of the usual red tint. Occasionally 

 general variation in size takes place, as in 189G, when almost 

 every specimen taken in Eichmond Park, Surrey, was from 

 one-fourth to one-half inch less in expanse of wing than 

 ordinary. Attention was called to this by Major A. Fickliu. 



On the wing in June and July. 



Larva about one inch and a quarter in length and propor- 

 tionately stout ; head glossy, with the lobes rounded, a little 

 narrower than the second, and still narrower than the third 

 segment ; body obese and cylindrical, tapering a little toward 

 the head, and somewhat abruptly at the anal extremity ; 

 skin soft and smooth, but when the larva is crawling the 

 segments are considerably puckered, and this, together with 

 the distinctness of the segmental divisions, gives it a 

 wrinkled appearance. Ground colour of the dorsal area 

 ochreous-yellow, thickly freckled with smoke-coloured and 

 purple dots, and on the anterior segments strongly suffused 

 with puq^le; head and corselet brown, the former thickly 

 dotted with paler spots ; the straight pale ochreous medio- 

 dorsal line extending (as do also the subdorsal lines) right 



