BRITISH BUTTERFLIES 



in their multitudes upon the blossoms of the standing 

 grass, and are henceforward a constant feature of 

 the summer. They are swiftly followed by many 

 others of their beautiful tribe ; and all of them are 

 creatures of the grass fields and the blossoms of 

 the grass, unlike the earliest Holly Blues of April, 

 which haunted the outer sides of sunny shrubberies 

 and thickets. Another brood of the Holly Blues 

 appears, indeed, in late July or August ; but with this 

 exception, the Blues are characteristic butterflies of 

 the fields and downs. Most noticeable among them 

 are the large, pale-winged Chalk Hill Blues, whose 

 filmy, clouded azure seems to reproduce the heat- 

 dimmed lustre of the skies of their native July, just as 

 the Holly Blue had the fresh skies of April in its wings, 

 and the Common Blue the midsummer brightness of 

 June. Most brilliant and burnished of all is the colour 

 of the Clifden Blue, a local but not uncommon butterfly 

 of southern hills, where, too, the dusky Small or Bed- 

 ford Blue is often to be found, dancing or drowsing, 

 among the wild down hay-crop of June. The common 

 Brown Argus is a little Blue that is no blue, but has the 

 upper surface of its wings of a rich, dark brown, with 

 a border of orange dots ; the male of the Common Blue 

 is also much smaller and duskier than the female, but 

 it has always a bluish-purple gloss in the middle of the 

 wing which distinguishes it from the Brown Argus, 



14 



