LEPIDOPTERA . 1 8 5 



caterpillar, bristly, blackish, with four yellowish lines, lives in com- 

 panies on the nettle. The Peacock Butterfly (Vanessa /<?, Fig. 161) 

 is very easily recognised by the peacock's eyes to the number of 

 four, one on each wing which have gained for it the name it bears. 

 The eye on the upper wings is reddish in the middle and surrounded 

 by a yellowish circle. That on the lower ones is blackish, with a 

 grey circle round it, and contains bluish spots. The upper part of 

 the wings is of a russety brown, the under part blackish. This 

 Vanessa is met with in the woods, in lucerne fields, and in gardens. 

 Its spiny caterpillar is of a shiny black with white dots, and lives 

 in companies on nettles. The chrysalis, at first greenish, then 

 brownish, is ornamented with golden spots. 



Fig. 162. Camberwell Beauty (Vanessa Antiopa). 



The Vanessa Antiopa (Fig. 162), one of the greatest of entomo- 

 logical rarities in England, is not very common in the woods about 

 Paris, but it is frequently found in the environs of Bordeaux, and, 

 above all, at the Grande Chartreuse (in the department of Isere). 

 The Parisian collectors go as far as Fontainebleau in pursuit of this 

 beautiful species, with angular wings, of a dark purple black, with a 

 yellowish or whitish band on the hind border and a succession of 

 blue spots above it. The caterpillar is black, and bristly, with red 

 spots. It lives in companies on the birch, the aspen, the elm, and 

 different kinds of willows. The pupa is blackish, sprinkled with a 

 bluish powder, and has ferruginous-coloured dots. The butterfly, 

 which emerges from the chrysalis in July and August, is found, after 

 hybernation, at the end of February and until May. It flies very 

 rapidly, and is very difficult to catch. 



