324 LEPIDOPTERA. 



usually with a faint purplish-grey band before the hind 

 margin • cilia greyish dashed with pale yellow. Female 

 similar, but with the antenna? only slightly indented. 



Underside pale yellowish, clouded toward the hind margin 

 with grey ; having on each wing a faint indication of a brown 

 central streak, and sometimes one or two cloudy bands cross- 

 ing the wings ; cilia dark grey chequered with yellowish 

 dashes ; thorax and abdomen whitish ; legs whitish, 

 tufted with long dowiiy white scales ; tarsi barred with 

 black. 



Variable in the ground colour, the grey or whitish often 

 tinged with brown or purplish ; more so in the colour and 

 intensity of the broad central band, which occasionally is no 

 darker than the rest of the fore wings, and indeed hardly 

 indicated, but varies through every shade of brown and 

 purplish-brown to deep dark chocolate, and in the darker 

 specimens spreads so toward the base as to give the effect 

 of fore wings half red-brown, half whitish-grey ; those in 

 which the red colour is absent usually show the ringed stigma 

 very distinctly, and outside it a couple of black short lines 

 indicating a renal stigma. A specimen from the north of 

 Ireland has a large, round, white apical blotch. 



On the wing in May and June, and a second generation in 

 August and September. Specimens have been known to 

 emerge even in November. 



Larva. Head rounded, lobes rather distinct ; body plump, 

 thickest in the middle, tapering behind. Colour of the body 

 usually some shade of reddish-brown, but varying from light 

 reddish or purplish-brown to pale buff, or dull yellowish, 

 or even to white ; head varying similarly, generally reddish 

 or yellowish, sometimes clouded with dark brown or even 

 grey. Body covered with rather thinly tufted soft hairs; 

 second segment having also on each side a long pencil of red, 

 grey, or blackish hairs ; a shoi't blunt dorsal tuft each upon 

 the fifth and sixth segments, bright red, pale red, or blackish. 



