BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



Varieties. The white- pupilled spots on 

 the under side are liable to great variation in 

 intensity and magnitude j in some specimens 

 they are dwindled to mere points, and from 

 others they are entirely absent. The beautiful 

 series of six umier sides figured on the pre- 

 ceding page is in the cabinet of Mr. Bond, and 

 has been most kindly lent purposely for this 

 work. It is extremely interesting, as showing 

 how a character, supposed to be of specific 

 value, can be modified, and indeed entirely 

 lost, without inducing the slightest doubt as 

 to the propriety of uniting all these dissimilar 

 individuals under one specific name. 



LIFE HISTORY. The EGG is laid singly, in 

 July and August, on several species of grass, 

 of which the common millet grass (Milium 

 effusum), the turfy hair grass (Aira ccespitosa), 

 and the annual meadow grass (Poa annua), 

 have been more particularly observed, but the 

 common couch grass (Triticum repens) is the 

 species which the CATERPILLAR described below 

 selected, by preference, for food in confine- 

 ment. The CATERPILLAR attains but a small 

 size during the autumn, and hybernates at the 

 roots of the various grasses on which it feeds, 

 but crawls out and begins feeding again very 

 early in the year, and by the end of March is 

 often half-grown ; it feeds during the night, 

 and cannot readily be found, unless diligent 

 search be made with a lanthorn among the 

 long grasses so commonly growing along our 

 hedgerows and ditches, more especially in the 

 neighbourhood of woods. The individual 

 specimen which I have described was full fed 

 on the 4th of July : it then rested in a straight 

 position, was very quiescent, and indeed ex- 

 hibited a great reluctance to motion of any 

 kind : when disturbed it fell off its food-plant, 

 feigning death, and assuming a crescentic 

 form, but the two extremities never touched ; 

 in this form it secretes itself at the roots of 

 grasses, and does not reascend until the ap- 

 prehended danger has passed. The head is 

 exserted, and is wider than the second seg- 

 ment, and covered with minute bristle- bearing 

 warts, which make it rough and scabrous; 

 fcbe body is fusiform, the sides dilated, and 

 the dilatation fringed with strong bristles ; 



the anal extremity terminates in two points, 

 directed backwards ; the dorsal surface is 

 wrinkled transversely, each segment being 

 thus distinctly divided into sections. The 

 colour of the head is pale wainscot-brown, 

 each cheek having three slightly darker but 

 faint broad stripes ; the ocelli are crowded 

 together on each side of the mouth, and in- 

 tensely black ; the body is very pale wainscot- 

 brown, with a medio-dorsal darker stripe, in 

 which are still darker and obscurely quadrate 

 spots at the interstices of the segments ; from 

 the tenth segment to the thirteenth, both 

 inclusive, the medio-dorsal stripe is con- 

 tinuously of the darker brown ; the lateral 

 dilated skinfold is almost white ; the spiracles 

 are intensely black ; the rest of the dorsal 

 surface is marked with very irregular brown 

 lines. Towards the end of June it attaches 

 itself by the anal claspers, and, hanging with 

 its head downwards, is transformed into a 

 short and very obese CHRYSALIS, the head of 

 which is rounded and undivided ; the anal 

 extremity, that is, the thirteenth segment 

 only, is very attenuated and flattened, the 

 extreme tip still narrower, slightly incurved, 

 and terminating in a row of minute hooks, by 

 means of which it adheres to a slight web 

 which the caterpillar had previously spun, 

 and from which it had suspended itself. The 

 colour of the chrysalis is pale wainscot-brown, 

 with a semitransparent appearance in the 

 wing-cases, which, as well as the antennae, 

 are delicately clouded and reticulated with 

 darker brown ; the dorsal surface is also 

 delicately dotted with brown, as well as 

 having larger spots methodically arranged ; a 

 pair of these, transversely elongate, but 

 arranged longitudii ally, form an almost 

 medio-dorsal series on each side of each seg- 

 ment. Newman. 



TIME OP APPEARANCE. The caterpillar is 

 full fed about the beginning of June ; the 

 chrysalis is usually found towards the end of 

 the month ; and the butterfly continues on the 

 wing throughout July. There is only one 

 brood. 



LOCALITIES. Widely distributed. Mr. Bir- 

 chall says that in Ireland it is rather local ; 



