1 4 LEPID OP TERA . 



Variation in this species seems to be in some degree 

 climatal. In the south the ground colour of the male is 

 ordinarily creamy-yellow, of the female orange-brown ; but 

 in hill districts and from the middle of England northward it 

 is almost invariably white or even greyish- white in the male ; 

 that of the female varying from pale yellow through various 

 shades of yellow-brown to dull pale umbreous. But it is 

 noticeable that males of the white form occur along with 

 those of the creamy-yellow variety throughout the South of 

 England, being often supposed to be simply washed or faded 

 specimens ; yet the females which accompany them appear in 

 no case to lose their rich orange or fulvous hue, those of the 

 more dull and brown colouring being to all appearance con- 

 fined to more Northern localities. In some Midland districts, 

 as in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, the yellow males and ful- 

 vous females still occur as the scarcer form. The browner 

 females vary a great deal in tone of colouring and in the 

 streaking of the nervures in the dark blotch. In the white 

 males the colour of the hind wings is unstable, the white area 

 in some occupying the greater part of the wings, in others 

 being almost obliterated by brown clouding. 



The dark slender transverse obscure stripe which so often 

 crosses the middle of the fore wings in the females is not 

 unfrequently reproduced in males of both white and yellow 

 varieties. In Inverness-shire Mr. J. J. F. X. King has taken 

 a smaller race, of which the female is dull brown, and the 

 richness of markings almost lost, indeed, one of these has no 

 markings at all upon the underside of the hind wings except 

 the white stripe from base to hind margin interrupted by 

 black-brown spots. A still smaller race is found by Mr. 

 Arthur Home at Aberdeen, averaging hardly more than one 

 half the normal size. In a specimen, of the ordinary size, in 

 Mr. Sydney Webb's collection the dark transverse stripe 

 which sometimes occurs has become a broad and conspicuous 

 black-brown band ; and there is a record of a wholly black 

 example taken in Berkshire. Mr. W. P. Blackburn-Maze 



