/. YCENTD.-E 63 



degree and extent of suffusion. It occurs most frequently upon 

 open heaths, and sometimes several smoky suffused specimens 

 may be taken about the same spot. I remember that on one 

 occasion Mrs. Fraser found quite a little colony of them in the 

 hollow of a hillside on a heath on the borders of Surrey. In 

 other specimens the nervures are blackened, or the spots en- 

 larged, or reduced in size, or in number, or altered into wedge- 

 shaped streaks, or united into a fascia, or the dark margin of 

 the wings is broadened, or narrowed. Frequently the coppery 

 marginal band of the hind wings is preceded by a row of 

 bright blue dots, or by streaks of coppery red running up the 

 nervures. In another recurrent and apparently local form 

 the hind wings are entirely black, or nearly so, the marginal 

 coppery band being partially or wholly obliterated. Occa- 

 sionally in such specimens the majority of the spots of the 

 fore wings are obliterated, and in some cases the margins 

 broadly blackened ; in others, the hind wings being normal, 

 the basal spots of the fore wings are absent, or the band of 

 spots. The number of singular variations to be found in 

 some of the larger southern collections is extraordinary, and 

 defies separate notice. A few may be mentioned. Mr. 

 Sydney Webb has one — taken at Chingford — which has the 

 foi'e wings nearly as black as the hind ; another with only 

 two black spots on the fore wings ; a third with no black about 

 it whatever, the spots being of a faint lead colour, and the 

 usnally black margins and hind wings pale yellow ; and a 

 fourth in which the entire centre of the fore wings is occupied 

 by a broad deep black band of coalesced spots. Mr. Capper 

 has one devoid of spots, and one is figured by Noel Humphreys 

 in which all the black markings are replaced by white. 

 On the wing every month from May to October. 



Larva somewhat onisciform, but without dorsal ridges or 

 hollows, dorsal region rounded, head concealed beneath the 

 second segment, all the legs so near together as to be invisible 

 from above. Head greenish or pale brown, with darker bro\\n 



