258 LEPIDOPTERA. 



dish ; head and thorax orange-red or greyish-red ; abdomen 

 pale orange, strongly barred with a dorsal series of black 

 stripes. Fore wings orange-red with the nervures and reni- 

 form spot deeper red ; hind wings reddish-yellow or orange, 

 with the central spot, the sub-marginal band, and the whole 

 basal area, broadly black ; hind margin and cilia orange-red. 



Underside of the fore wings in the male much clouded with 

 smoky black, and with the central spot large and black, but 

 surrounded with yellowish ; margins broadly light red, or 

 orange with the cilia red ; hind wings yellow, with red 

 margins, the central spot small or absent ; legs reddish with 

 tufts of bright red scales on the tibiae ; abdomen yellowish. 

 Underside of the wings of the female orange, more red at the 

 margins, with black shades from the base, and black central 

 and sub-marginal l)lotclies, varying in intensity according to 

 the depth of colour of the upper side; legs dark red; abdomen 

 mingled red and blackish. 



Variable in the markings of the hind wings on both sexes. 

 In the male these are sometimes suffused from the base with 

 paler or darker grey; the sub-marginal band also varies 

 greatly, being in some specimens broad and dark without 

 pale intersecting lines, in others broken up by pale nervures 

 into narrow bars, or in some cases being nearly or quite 

 obsolete. In the female the basal black blotch sometimes 

 embraces and conceals the central spot or even reaches the 

 sub-marginal band at its dorsal extremity; while in some few 

 cases the hind wings are almost totally black. These last are 

 usually from the north. 



On the wing in June and the beginning of July. Occa- 

 sionally a portion of a brood of young larvee will feed up 

 rapidly and produce the moths at the end of August or in 

 September. In this country this appears only to have 

 occurred in captivity, but on the Continent the species is 

 known to be regularly double-brooded. 



Lakva rather slender, each segment rounded and covered 



