186 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



sides of the wings are in detail like the ground she 

 has settled on : these under sides are marked and 

 veined with grey and yellowish-brown, and there are 

 tiny " eyes " at the edges of the hind wings made up 

 of concentric rings of black, yellow, red, and blue 

 which I cannot think were developed for protection; 

 they mimic nothing on the ground where the butterfly 

 sits. Nevertheless, the effect of the whole is invisibility ; 

 there is a sudden, baffling change from lively flight to 

 perfect stillness, from rather gay upper sides of wings 

 to the chastened tinting of the under sides of hind 

 wings for the rosy stain on the under side of the front 

 wings is not seen, as the painted lady draws these 

 back. It is the same with grayling butterfly in the fir 

 woods another disappearing butterfly. 



These things point, I may be told, to a plan of pro- 

 tection ; I rather feel they do, though, if so, it is 

 achieved with painted lady and grayling, not by 

 mimicry, but by unexpected swift exchange of gay 

 dress for grave, and, at the same moment, of flight for 

 stillness. But here is a difficulty : why is it essential 

 that the painted lady should suddenly become in- 

 visible ? Where is the foe against whom Nature need 

 arm her in complete mail of invisibility ? I have 

 never caught sight of him : but assume his existence 

 and a fresh difficulty seems to arise would he be 

 cheated as easily as our great, slow selves ? 



A grassy, heathery clearing in the birch woods is a 

 playground of butterflies in August. A few battered 



