PEACOCK BUTTERFLY. 195 



Tortoiseshell, and the Peacock Butterfly often bear it 

 company. I have taken all those insects plentifully 

 on teazles in Bagley Wood, near Oxford. 



As in the case with other Butterflies, the Painted 

 Lady is wonderfully intermittent in its appearance, 

 sometimes being absent or extremely scarce for 

 several years, and then appearing in swarms for a 

 year or two in succession. 



WE must not complete our notice of this genus 

 without brief mention of the beautiful PEACOCK 

 BUTTERFLY ( Vanessa Id], so conspicuous on account 

 of the * eyes ' or circular marks on both pairs of wings. 

 The under surface of the insect is brown-black, 

 mottled in a most curious but almost indescribable 

 manner. Whether the sombre colouring be intended 

 for defence I cannot say, but there is no doubt that 

 the insect often owes its life to the contrast between 

 the upper and under surface. When a Peacock 

 Butterfly is chased, it has a way of flying round a 

 tree trunk, and settling on it, closing its wings at the 

 same time, and bringing them together over its back. 

 In this attitude it looks wonderfully like a dead leaf, 

 and the change from a large, active, beautifully- 

 coloured Butterfly, to a thin, black, shrivelled leaf, is 

 so great and so rapid that scarcely any eye but that 

 of an entomologist would detect the insect. 



The larva is one of the nettle-feeders, and is 

 mostly very common, in some places quite as plen- 

 tiful as that of the Tortoiseshell, while in others it has 

 to be searched for carefully before it can be found. 

 The general colour of the caterpillar is black, and the 



