92 THE BOOK OF BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



yellow or white spots, instead of silver ones. The antennae 

 are knobbed, and the costal margin of the fore-wings is 

 almost straight. The larvae have short, blunt spines, with 

 black bristles. When hatched, they bind together with 

 silken threads a few leaves of the food-plant, making a 

 kind of tent, under whose protection they live and feed. 

 This they continue to do, taking new and larger dwellings 

 as they grow, till towards the end of summer, when they 

 descend the food-plant and make down among the thicker 

 herbage close to the ground a stronger dwelling-place, in 

 which they pass the winter in companies, appearing again 

 to finish feeding in early spring, when they separate and 

 discard their customary shelter. The pupae, which are 

 suspended by the anal extremity by means of tiny hooks 

 fastened to a pad of silk usually on the food-plant, are 

 stout, and without any anterior points or keels, either 

 dorsal or lateral, in this respect differing considerably from 

 the genus Argynnis. The sexes are similar. The genus 

 Melitaa is well represented in the Northern Hemisphere, 

 except in high latitudes, but does not extend to Africa 

 or South America. 



M. aurinia, Rott., M. artemis, Fabr. (Greasy or 

 Marsh Fritillary) (Figs. 86 to 89), obtains its first English 

 name from the shiny, smeared, appearance of both surfaces 

 of the wings, making the insect look very much as if it was 

 affected with grease. The second English name has re- 

 ference to the localities to which the butterfly is rather 

 partial. It delights to sun itself on the many flowers to 

 be found in damp meadows and marshy spots, where it 

 may easily be caught, for even if it takes wing its flight 

 is weak. The conspicuous larva is often "stung," and 

 falls a victim to the larvae of a species of Microgaster 

 (an ichneumon-fly), of which twenty or more may be 

 feeding within it at once. 



