132 MEADOW BROWN. 



sombre than for lively colouring. Their caterpillars, usually 

 green, with forked tails, assimilate with the various grasses on 

 which they feed ; and even when arrayed in winged attire, 

 their prevailing shades of brown and orange bear still a de- 

 gree of correspondence with the hues of the ripened and sun- 

 burnt clothing of their favourite localities, the meadow and 

 the heath. 



Amongst other species, not rare, the most common of this 

 brown brotherhood, perhaps, of all the race of butterflies, ex- 

 cepting the Cabbage Whites, is the " Meadow Brown."* The 

 wings of the male are of a uniform blackish brown, enliven- 

 ed by a small black eye with a white pupil. Beneath this 

 ocellus there is in those of the female a large irregular patch 

 of orange buff, and all her pinions are more prettily, and 

 somewhat more gaily, painted on their under than their upper 

 sides ; the foremost with dark orange, the hindmost with 

 shades of light brown. This "Brown," of the Meadow is the 

 hardy flutterer noticed by Mr. Knapp, as being, of all its race, 

 the most indifferent to weather. On the most damp and 

 cheerless of summer days, it is seen, he says, in every tran- 

 sient gleam, drying its wings, and tripping from flower to 

 flower, left seemingly the sole possessor of their sweets. This, 

 as well as the rest of its genus, comprising, among others, the 

 "Heath" Butterfly and the " Kinglet," have ' the fore legs 

 very short. 



* Hlpparchia Janwa. 



