250 LEPIDOPTERA. 



black-brown and pale reddish-bi'own ; hind margin spotted 

 with black lunules, each of which has a white streak at its 

 back ; cilia smoky-brown, barred with blacker. Hind wings 

 broad, rounded, hind margin crenulated and slightly sinuous ; 

 colour shining copper, or orange-tawny, the costal third more 

 smoky-brown ; nervui'es dark brown ; cilia smoky yellowish- 

 white. Female quite similar, but with the body broader and 

 thicker, and the fore wings a very little broader. 



Underside of the fore wings smoky-drab, darker in the 

 middle ; hind wings similar along the costal region but 

 shading to purplish-red in the hinder half ; central spot 

 large, dusky-black ; beyond it is a rather broad, incomplete, 

 indented black transverse stripe shading off into the red 

 colour. Body and leg tufts pale drab ; legs blackish-brown 

 spotted with white, the hinder pair accurately matching the 

 lateral tufts of the abdomen. 



Usually only variable in the depth of the brown ground 

 colour of the fore wings, especially in that portion which lies 

 immediately beyond the second line, which is sometimes of a 

 whitish -brown, and in the depth of the dark band, which in 

 some of the paler individuals is scarcely existent. Some- 

 times the hind wings are a little paler ; indeed, Mr. W. H. B. 

 Fletcher possesses a specimen which is almost devoid of the 

 usual copper colour ; and Mr, Percy Kichards has one in 

 which these wings are of a pale bronzy-red, quite different 

 from the usual tint A specimen taken many years ago in the 

 New Forest by the late Mr. Baker is of extraordinary and 

 striking beauty : in the fore wings its ground colour is 

 intensely dark umbreous, velvety and glossy, but the 

 orbicular stigma, the margins of the first and second lines, 

 and a row of short streaks along the hind margin are all of a 

 brilliant silvery-white ; the hind wings are of the normal 

 colouring. 



On the wing from the end of July till September, and 

 eometimes even October. 



