94 LEPIDOPTERA. 



8. P. Acis, Bchiff. ; semiargus, Stand. Gat. — Ex- 

 panse, 1] inch. Male purplish-blue, with narrow dark 

 brown margin. Female brown. Under side light brown, 

 with a row of minute black spots. 



Male, purplish-blue with brown uervures, and the hind 

 margin narrowly dark brown ; cilia white. Female, brown, 

 with a few blue scales at the base, and a faint central blackish 

 spot on the fore wings ; cilia greyish-white. Under side of 

 male, pale greyish-brown, bluish at the base ; fore wings with a 

 central black streak, edged with white, followed by an irregular 

 row of very small white-ringed black spots on both fore and hind 

 wings. There is also a minute black ocellated spot near the base 

 of the hind wings. Female, pale golden brown, with the spots 

 similar, and, in addition, a central white-margined black streak 

 on the hind wings Apparently not variable in this country. 



June and July. 



Larva covered with fine yellowish -green hair, with darker 

 stripes on the back and sides ; head, feet, and stigmata dark 

 brown. On AnthyllU vidncraria in August and September, 

 flvirby.) 



This species has, apparently, always been somewhat scarce 

 in this country, or, at least, exceedingly local. Now, there is 

 much reason to fear that it has become entirely extinct with 

 us. Haworth (1803) mentions it as a species of great rarity, 

 giving Norfolk and Yorkshire as localities ; and Lewin, who 

 took it near Bath, was of the same opinion. But when 

 Stephens wrote (about 1828) either it had greatly increased in 

 numbers, or its favourite localities had become much better 

 known, and he speaks of it as occurring in chalky districts in 

 Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Yorkshire, and Dorsetshire, as well as 

 in Surrey and Hants. The Kev. W. T. Bree, a few years later, 

 pointed out that it was not confined to chalky districts, but 

 widely distributed, " seeming to delight in woody situations 

 abounding in grass." He found it at Coleshill, Warwickshire. 

 In this and other localities near Birmingham it is said to have 



