MIDSUMMER BUTTERFLIES 41 



butterfly appears but especially one of their own species 

 they leap at once into the air, and bicker with it as pugnaci- 

 ously as the small copper, and with an even more active and 

 vigorous flight. After buzzing with a flylike motion they 

 have a way of making a sudden leap or ' skip ' in the air, 

 which often makes it hard for the eye to follow them ; and 

 they will practise this elusive flight out of sheer inner velocity, 

 and when there is no other 

 butterfly to provoke them. 

 Though they are often found 

 in rough pastures, they are 

 fondest of the sunny glades in 

 woods and copses ; and they 

 appear, like the full sprays of 

 tender foliage, at the height 

 of the growing year. 



Small pearl-bordered fritil- 

 laries also love luxuriant and 

 leafy places, and are less often 

 seen on drier and more open 

 commons than the earlier 

 and commoner large pearl- 

 bordered kind. To the incurious eye they might easily 

 appear to be small specimens of that fritillary which has 

 grown so familiar among the bugle blossom and bracken since 

 some bright morning early in May. But they come freshly 

 forth when the earlier butterfly grows worn with winds and 

 wayfaring ; and if we watch it fanning on a spray, or 

 absorbed in some midsummer blossom, we see that there 

 are plain differences in its marking. The upper side of the 

 wings are more lightly chequered with black, giving them a 

 more uniform and rather less handsome appearance ; while, 

 on the other hand, the gleaming silver plaques on the under 

 side are more numerous and convergent. Like most of the 



LARGE SKIPPERS 



