86 T.EPWOPTERA. 



with pale rings. But on the South Coast, in Kent especially, 

 much more extreme aben-ations are occasionally found in this 

 sex. Mr. C. A. Briggs possesses a male with the whole of the 

 cilia spotless white, and the anal angle also white; another 

 having a black-brown wedge-shaped streak on the upper side of 

 the right fore wing, pointing inward from the margin ; and a 

 third having one abnormal hind wing, longer and far broader 

 than usual, with an indentation in the middle of the hind 

 margin, which shows that it is really a double wing, each half 

 of which has nearly all the usual spots reduced in size on the 

 under side. Mr. S. Stevens has an instructive series, either 

 stunted in size or slightly crippled, in which the blue scales 

 are partially absent, or entirely absent from patches on one 

 or more of the wings, leaving the patches brownish ; also 

 larger and more perfect specimens, still thinly scaled, and of 

 brownish-blue or purplish ; evidently the victims of insufficient 

 or withered food, and thus indicative of one of the causes of 

 variation. Mr. Webb has some almost white, others having 

 whitish dashes from the margins on the upper side, or with a 

 large and distinct black spot on the fore wings above, while 

 others are dark grey or steel colour. A male, taken thirty 

 years ago, by the Kev. A. Fuller, in Lord Godolphin's piark 

 in Cambi-idgeshire, and still in his collection at Chichester, 

 has all the ocellated spots of the under side obsolete, but 

 instead, a row of long black streaks in the hind wings ; and 

 one from Wiltshire, in Mr. Stevens's collection, is of a strange 

 dark steel blue, with broad brown margin and i«/' cilia. 



The variations of the female sex do not seem to run to such 

 extremes, but many specimens have the upper side tinged 

 with the same pale blue as that of the males ; and near Dover 

 specimens are occasionally taken having the hind wings very 

 strongly so coloured in stripes or patches. In the collection 

 of Mr. S. Stevens is a specimen which was taken near Stone- 

 henge (probably unique as a variety), in which the whole 

 upper side is of the colour of the male, except the hind margins, 

 which are broadly blackish-brown, and have on the hind wings 



