MELIT^A. 91 



look as if they had taken the place of some of the spines 

 of the larval stage. The colour is greyish, with darker 

 markings ; and, as with several of its near relatives, the 

 surface has in many places a golden lustre. 



The costal margin of the fore-wings is much arched, 

 the hind-margin of all the wings is slightly scalloped, and 

 that of the fore-wings rather concave. The fore-wings of the 

 male (Fig. 81) are much less scalloped than those of the 

 female (Fig. 83). The ground-colour is rich sienna 

 in the male, duller in the female. In the male there 

 is a broad, raised, black line along four of the 

 nervures of the fore-wings. On all the wings the nervures 

 are connected towards the base by black bars, and there 

 are two rows of spots, parallel to the hind-margin, two 

 spots occurring between each pair of nervures ; on the 

 hind-wings these spots are almost round, and very regular. 

 Each nervure bears near its extremity a diamond-shaped 

 black spot. On the under-surface (Fig. 82) the fore- 

 wings are pale yellowish-brown, with black spots, and a few 

 greenish ones at the tip ; the hind-wings have been 

 described above. 



There is a beautiful variety of the female named valezina, 

 Esper, in which the upper surface is dull brownish-green. 

 In addition to the usual markings, which are made 

 indistinct by the dark ground-colour, there are some 

 whitish patches near the tip of the fore-wings. The 

 New Forest is a good locality for this variety, but it is 

 sometimes taken in Devon and elsewhere. 



Melitaea, Fabr. 



This genus contains three British species M. aurinia, 

 M. cinxia, M. athalia which may be characterised as 

 having on the upper surface the usual orange-brown 

 ground-colour, chequered with black, but as having below 



