12 LEPIDOPTERA. 



line near the base, and another, more oblique, beyond the 

 middle ; between these is usually a broad, sharply defined, 

 deep olive-green central band, sometimes entire, more 

 frequently broken into two blotches, the upper or costal 

 blotch large, square, or pear-shaped, or shaped like a broad 

 ivy leaf with the point outwards ; the lower, or dorsal blotch, 

 rhomboidal or obliquely conical. When entire, this band is 

 always sharply constricted below a central projection, but 

 this constriction commonly becomes the division, and then 

 the variations in shape of the separated halves or blotches 

 are remarkable, both becoming contracted, narrowed, de- 

 tached from the margins of the wing, the smaller occasionally 

 reduced to a mere streak or faint brown cloud, or even 

 disappearing altogether, and the larger taking almost eveiy 

 possible form from a square to a wedge, though usually 

 preserving the curious resemblance to an ivy leaf. Towards 

 the apex the dark olive clouding of the hind margin is 

 sharply cut off by a straight horizontal white line from the tip, 

 which bounds an indented whitish blotch. Cilia short, 

 reddish. Hind wings brownish, pale grey, or grey tinged 

 with reddish, often with a brown or dark gi'ey cloud near the 

 base ; the excavated portion of the wing near the anal angle 

 dark green, merging into a dark grey cloud which extends 

 transversely across the wing, and outside which the marginal 

 space is greenish, reddish, or smoky blackish. 



Underside delicate pale olive-green tinged with reddish, 

 with the costa whitish, straight whitish bands across the 

 middle of the fore and hind wings, and a whitish patch at 

 the apex. 



Besides the extreme irregularity in shape of the central 

 band, or divided band, already described, there is great 

 variation in colour, especially in the female, from olive-green 

 or greyish-green to paler, or deeper, red-brown. In many 

 specimens this is merely an effect of fading or alteration of 

 colour, the greenish colour of the pale portion of the fore wings 

 from the base to the clouded line beyond the middle changing 



