266 LEPIDOPTERA. 



conspicuous marking on the fore wings. In most instances 

 the first and second transverse bands are united by a 

 horizontal stripe. Cilia very short, brown or white, agreeing 

 with the adjacent margin. 



Hind wings very ample, with the hind margin regularly 

 rounded ; dark scarlet, with large rounded, ovate, or irregular 

 blue-black spots or blotches, which are faintly edged with 

 yellowish. These spots form — roughly — two series : one, 

 two, or three in a transverse row before the middle of the 

 wing, the central being the largest, the most permanent, and 

 nearest the base ; and three others, all large, placed in a row 

 before the hind margin ; cilia yellow. Female similar, rather 

 larger and stouter. 



Underside having the markings as on the upper, but the 

 creamy white portions of the fore wings suffused with pale 

 scarlet or orange-red over the basal portion, sometimes also 

 round the margins and tinging the central area ; or the latter 

 portions are yellowish ; hind wings of a paler scarlet than 

 above ; body brownish or blackish with numerous tufts of 

 scarlet scales along the sides and at the edges of the segments ; 

 legs black-brown with scarlet tufts. 



Perhaps the most variable in markings of all Lepidopterous 

 insects, hardly any two individuals being precisely alike. 

 The more ordinary phases of variation are in the increase, or 

 decrease, of the proportions of the white stripes to the brown 

 ground colour, in the fore wings ; in one direction by the 

 brown predominating and narrowing or breaking the stripes 

 and blotches, or wholly or partly obliterating them in un- 

 certain and irregular degrees ; in the other by the white 

 stripes increasing in width and extent, uniting together, and 

 reducing the brown colour to irregular isolated patches, or 

 even to mere spots. These two tendencies are in rare 

 instances carried so far that the fore wings become wholly 

 brown-black or creamy-white. In the hind wings the outer 

 row of blue-black spots is nearly always present thougli 

 varying greatly in size, and the anterior of them very 



