64 LEPIDOPTERA. 



lines ; body velvety green, with minute pinkish or wliitish 

 dots ; dorsal line faintly brownish ; spiracular line pink or 

 reddish, or sometimes not indicated ; legs and pro-legs pink. 

 On Rumex acdoseUa (sheep sorrel), and occasionally on 

 M. acetosa and various species of dock. 



Pupa short and stumpy, rounded in front, blunt behind ; 

 licrht brown, speckled with darker, and with black dots at 

 the sides. Suspended by the tail and a silken girth to the 

 stem or leaf of its food plant. 



It seems certain that normally there are three broods in 

 the year, appearing in the imago state in May and the be- 

 ginning of June, in July or beginning of August, and at the 

 end of September or early in October. In South Wales I have 

 seen the butterflies common and very lively in the last-named 

 month, and as during the summer the larveefeed up from the 

 egg to the pupa state in three weeks, there may, in favour- 

 able summers, be four generations. On the other hand, it 

 is probable that in wet autumns a large portion of the larvse 

 which should produce the third brood, hybernate, and produce 

 .butterflies in May. In other cases the larvse resulting from 

 eggs laid late in autumn hybernate small, and feed up in the 

 spring. 



This butterfly is one of our liveliest and most active as well 

 as most brilliant species. From the stoutness and strength 

 of its thorax it possesses great swiftness of flight, and may be 

 found in gardens, fields, and waysides, and also in plenty on 

 the wildest and most desolate bogs and heaths, hillsides and sea 

 sandhills, sitting upon flowers — composite flowers especially — 

 opening and shutting its wings, darting off in an instant to 

 attack a passing insect, and returning, after a disjjlay of ac- 

 tivity which the eye can scarcely follow, to almost the same 

 blossom. 



It may be fouud in suitable places all over England, 

 Wales, and Ireland ; and in Scotland as far north as 

 Moray on the east side, but in the west is not known farther 



