SAT y RID. 'E. 223 



divided by the dark nervures into a series of oblong pale 

 blotches. In two of these are large round black spots, usually 

 with a minute white pupil, one spot in the costal half of the 

 wing, the other in the dorsal, and placed exactly as in the 

 male. Hind wings also as in the male, but with the pale 

 fulvous blotches larger and more distinct. 



Under side of the fore wings fulvous to the middle, yellowish 

 beyond ; costal and hind margins mottled and streaked with 

 brown. Arising on the costa are, generally, two tooth-shaped 

 brown spots, the second of which, in the female, extends into 

 an angulated blackish broken band separating the fulvous 

 and yellowish areas ; spots as on the upper side. Of hind 

 wings marbled and mottled with dark and pale brown and 

 whitish, with numerous short blackish transverse lines ; and 

 having a central, much angulated, black line bounding the 

 darker portion ; beyond this is a pale band, much suffused 

 and ripjjled with brown, and becoming darker towards the 

 hind margin. Cilia, above and below, whitish with brown 

 dashes at the nervures. 



This species is liable to variation of a very singular and 

 interesting character. It habitually and by choice settles 

 upon the ground, and its hind wings on the under side vary in 

 colour in some degree according to the colour of the soil upon 

 which it usually rests. In chalky districts the marbling of dark 

 and pale browns is further mottled with whitish, pi-oducing 

 in an extraordinary degree, the mottled whitish appearance 

 of weathered and stained chalk. In its usual haunts on heaths 

 and hill sides this portion of the wings is always dark, and so 

 nearly agreeing in colour with the earth or rock upon which 

 it alights, that, in most instances, so long as it remains still 

 and with wings closed, it is scai-cely possible to detect it. In 

 the late Mr. H. Doubleday's collection at the Bethnal Green 

 Museum are two specimens in which this surface is of a rich 

 pale buff colour. Unfortunately it is not known whether 

 these assimilated themselves to any particular colour of soil, 

 but there is little doubt that they are from sandhills on the 



