N YMPHA LID.^. 1 37 



Hiud margins of wings slightly scalloped, with a bi-oad 

 wedge-shaped projection below the apex of the fore wings, 

 and another in the middle of the hinder margin of the hiud 

 wings. Rich chocolate-red. Fore wings tinged with golden 

 bi'owu at the base ; costal margin blapkish, broadly so from 

 the base to the middle, and almost covered with rippling 

 transverse yellow lines ; two triangular black spots on the 

 costal mai'gin, the interval being yellow, the outer spot large 

 and curved so as partly to embrace a large and beautiful 

 ocellus (or eye-spot), of black and red in a shaded ring of 

 yellow and blue, margined with black. Below this are two 

 whitish-blue spots ; hind margin shaded with purplish-brown, 

 darkest at the edge. Hind wings dai'k brown dusted with 

 golden-yellow at the base ; beyond the middle of the costal 

 margin, and occupying the adjacent angle of the wing, is a 

 still larger ocellus — a blue-centred black spot in a pale, 

 shaded, yellowish-grey ring, broadly surrounded with black- 

 brown ; hind margin narrowly edged and shaded with dark 

 brovni. 



Female similar, slightly larger. 



Under side dark purplish-brown, shaded with blackish, and 

 with black central transverse lines or stripes. Fore wings 

 with three or four light brown, or whitish, dots before the apex. 



Extremely constant in colour and markings, almost the 

 only variation, in specimens taken at large, being in the 

 occasional appearance of a paler shade, or cloudy blotch, in 

 the middle of the chocolate-colour of the fore wings, or even 

 in one wing only. This variety I have taken in Pembroke- 

 shire. Specimens reared from the larva stage in confinement, 

 in some instances, show singular changes in the ocellated 

 spots, the blue centre or even the black spot being obliterated, 

 or even the whole ocellus of either fore or hind wings, or 

 both, reduced to a small spot, or to a mere whitish or blackish 

 cloud. Other reared specimens are deficient of the chocolate 

 scales and appear purplish and semi-transparent. Mr. H. 

 Ramsay Cox has proved pretty conclusively that these 



