THE PEARL SKIPPER 



upright and folded above the back, that one has a 

 fair view of his points of difference from the large 

 skipper, a very common English butterfly. Perhaps 

 he is not quite so dressy as the large skipper, want- 

 ing, apparently, that purplish bloom about the fringe 

 of the lower pair of wings that gives the finishing 

 touch ; but the underwear is curious and effective. 



The pearl skipper, in the broad belt of roadside 

 turf, banquets on one course, that of the dwarf thistles 

 no epicene feast for him. It is whilst probing the 

 thistle for nectar that he can be stalked and examined 

 closely. Settled on the ground or on a grass blade, 

 his wings half open, the upper pair slightly separated 

 from the lower just as the large skipper sits he is 

 wary and alert. So quick and erratic is his flight 

 that one must strain the sight to follow him from 

 thistle to thistle. In a flash he is gone. The gray- 

 ling butterfly, disturbed on the bit of burnt, ash- 

 sprinkled ground on the opposite side of the road, 

 scene of the gipsies' camp fire (this place is sacred to 

 gipsies and butterflies), flits a little way with peculiar 

 gait, wings half open, half closed, only to return to 

 the same spot. Down sits the grayling where and 

 as he sat before, drawing from view, as if with some 

 well regulated little spring, the tips of the upper 

 wings that sport the butterfly " eye " ; and then, it 

 must be said, he does assimilate almost perfectly 

 with environment. But the pearl skipper's rounds 

 are longer or more erratic ; disturb him, and it may 

 be half an hour before he returns to the same scrap 

 of thy my turf, if he return at all. 



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