70 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



bling the upper side ; the lower wings clouded and 

 spotted with russet-brown on a paler brown ground, the 

 dark rounded brown spots having white centres ; but 

 there are no black eye-spots on the hind wings. 



The caterpillar is greenish- grey, with reddish head 

 and two pale lines on each side and a dark one down 

 the back. 



The butterfly, a feeble flier and easily captured, ap- 

 pears in July and August ; its favourite resorts being 

 heaths, dry fields, and lanes. 



It is sometimes called the Small Meadow Brown, 

 and the Gate-keeper. 



THE RINGLET BUTTERFLY. 

 (Hipparchia ffyperanthus.) (Plate VI. fig. 3, Female.) 



THIS is one of those butterflies in which Nature, depart- 

 ing from her accustomed plan, has reserved the chief 

 adornment of the wings for the under surface, leaving 

 the upper comparatively plain and unattractive. 



In both sexes the wings, above, are of a deep sepia 

 brown, surrounded by a greyish white fringe, and bear- 

 ing several black spots in paler rings, which rings are 

 much less distinct in the male than in the female, the 

 sex figured in the plate. 



The under surface is of a soft russet ground, adorned 

 with a wreath of the ringlet-spots from which the insect 

 takes its common name. These are black eye-spots, white- 

 centred and set in a clear ring of pale tawny colour. 

 The most usual form and proportions of these spots are 

 shown in the figure (with closed wings), but there are 

 many varieties met with, the following being the most 

 remarkable that have come under my notice. 



One, and not a very uncommon one, has no light 

 rings round the black spots on the under side. 



Another has the rings reduced to a range of mere 

 light specks, the black eye-spots being entirely absent. 



