MEADOW BROWN BUTTERFLY. 197 



(loiil)le pupil. The hinder wings are tawny-brown 

 from the base to the middle, where the colour ter- 

 minates in an angular line : the space beyond this is 

 pale, excepting the margin, which is of the same co- 

 lour as the base. The pale portion sometimes bears 

 two or three small black eye-hke spots, and the whole 

 surface seems as if dusted with black. 



Both the caterpillar and chrysalis are light gi-een, 

 the former with a white line along each side, and 

 the latter streaked with brown. It feeds on several 

 common grasses, particularly the Smooth-stalked 

 Meadow-grass {Poa pratensis). The butterfly is 

 first seen on the wing in the beginning of June, and, 

 next to the White Cabbage species, may perhaps be 

 regarded as the most common insect of its tribe in- 

 habiting Britain. " Amid the tribes of insects," 

 says Mr Kapp, " particularly influenced by sea- 

 sons, there are a few which appear little affected by 

 common events : the Brown Meadow Butterfly, so 

 well known to every one, I have never missed in 

 any year ; and in those damp and cheerless summers 

 when even the White Cabbage Butterfly is scarcely 

 to be found, this creature may be seen in every tran- 

 sient gleam, drying its wings, and tripping from flower 

 to flower, with animation and life, nearly the sole 

 possessor of the field and its sweets. Diy and ex- 

 hausting as the summer may be, yet this dusky but- 

 terfly is uninjured by it, and we see it in profusion 

 hovering about the sapless foliage. In that arid 

 summer of 1826, the abundance of these creatures 



