SOME ENGLISH BUTTERFLIES 



The butterfly-pictures of the year grow no less dis- 

 tinct and characteristic as the verdure deepens under 

 midsummer skies, though they multiply greatly in 

 number, and spread from their earlier sheltering coverts 

 across the whole face of the land. In the June copses, 

 when the carpet of cow-wheat and prunella has been 

 submerged by the rising growth, the frosted silver of 

 the bramble blossom shakes itself to birth over the un- 

 curling fronds of bracken ; and when the cool, white 

 bramble-blossom is born in the middle of year, then the 

 lordlier Fritillary monarchs come forth to bask and 

 feast upon it in the glades. There is no more beautiful 

 picture in the midsummer woods than the deep, golden 

 rides of oak and hazel and springing bracken, where 

 the High Brown and Silver-washed Fritillaries seem 

 the proud and conscious monarchs, sailing down the 

 fair-way of the sunshine on broad wings of deepened 

 sunlight glow, or fanning and poising in ecstasy on 

 some large June flower, while the sheen of the silver 

 mail of their under sides flashes for a moment and is 

 withdrawn again from the light. Now, too, in wood- 

 land and leafy places the midsummer sunshine brings 

 forth the smaller but beautiful Hairstreak butterflies, 

 of which even the commoner species are curiously fitful 

 and capricious in their periodic appearances. The 

 Green Hairstreak is perhaps the most generally distri- 

 buted of all this tribe ; but it is the Purple Hairstreak 



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