PYRAMEIS. 97 



THE RED ADMIRAL. PYRAMEIS ATALANTA. 



(Plate XXIIL, Figs. I, 2.) 



Papilio atalanta. Linn., Syst. Nat. (x.), i., p. 478, no. 119 

 (1758); id. Faun. Suec. (ii.), p. 279, no. 1060 (1761); 

 Esper, Schmett, i., pt. i. (i.), p. 182, pi. 14, fig. i (1777). 

 Vanessa atalanta, Steph., 111. Brit. Ent. Haust, i., p. 46 

 (1827); Kirby, Eur. Butterflies and Moths, p. n, pi. 6, 

 fig. i (1878); Lang, Eur. Butterflies, p. 177, pi. 41, fig. 3 

 (1882); Barrett, Lepid. Brit. Is!., i., p. 145, pi. 20, figs. 2, 

 2, a-d (1892); Buckler, Larvae Brit. Lepid., i., pp. 49, 

 174, pi. 8, fig. i (1886). 



The Red Admiral is a very common and conspicuous 

 Butterfly, which appears rather late in the summer, or at the 

 beginning of autumn, and may then be seen wherever there are 

 flowers or fruit, of which it is very fond. It is found in 

 gardens, or flying about trees in orchards, just as frequently as 

 in lanes or clearings in woods, and it particularly affects ivy- 

 blossom. It often flies in company with its congener, the 

 Painted Lady, over waste ground, and both species are very 

 fond of the slopes or summits of hills. It has a wide range 

 over Europe, North Africa, Northern and Western Asia, and 

 North and Central America ; but in the Canaries another 

 closely-allied species is met with, resembling P. atalanta, but 

 with a broader and more irregular red band on the fore-wings. 

 This is P. vulcania (Godart), an insect hardly distinguishable, 

 except by its more intense red band, from P. indica, of 

 Herbst, which inhabits North India, China, and Japan. How 

 two forms, barely distinguishable as species, should have come 

 to inhabit such widely-separated countries, between which they 

 are scarcely likely to have been carried by accident, or even 

 by design, remains one of the most perplexing of all the many 

 difficult proverbs connected with the geographical distribution 

 of Butterflies. 



