36 SUMMER 



in one wide noonday tune ; in most such haunted spots the 

 little blues appear punctually June by June, and we know 

 that if we rise and go into the high places of that wonderful 

 country we shall find them faithful to their time. Their 

 unfolded wings are of a smoky brown, like those of the 

 brown argus ; but those of the male are shot with a purple 

 iridescence which betrays their family as they flutter gently 

 from one cluster of bird's-foot trefoil to another, or quiver 

 on a head of lady's fingers. Ineradicably faithful to their 

 haunt, they are feeble fliers, and spend much of the bright 

 days, and all the grey ones, resting with closed wings on a 

 flower-head or grass stem. The under side of their wings 

 has the typical pearled and silvery pattern of the blues, but 

 without the usual brightness. Like so many of the scarcer 

 butterflies and plants, it is confined to chalk or limestone 

 soils ; its food-plant in the larval stage is the lady's fingers, 

 within sight of which it passes all its life. 



A little later in the month, on higher and wilder hills 

 far to northward, the mountain ringlet emerges, and is 

 equally true to its one chosen spot. It holds a very remark- 

 able position in English wild life, for it is a surviving 

 member of the Arctic fauna which flourished here in the 

 Ice Age, so far as anything can be said to have flourished 

 at that time. Its only remaining haunt in England is 

 among the mountains of the Lake District, and that is 

 its last station until it is found again in the Alps. It lives 

 in grassy hollows of the mountains at a height over two 

 thousand feet, and then it may be seen in June and early 

 July fluttering about the rough slopes in the thin, high 

 air, whenever the sun shines brightly. It is a dusky little 

 creature, a little larger than the common small heath, but 

 at once darker and richer in colour. Its dark brown wings 

 are banded with deep orange-red, and spotted with a row of 



