138 SKIPPERS. 



The " Grizzled Skipper,"* also a common species in woods 

 and pastures, has upper wings of dark brown, enlivened by 

 squarish spots of cream or straw colour : the hinder pair pret- 

 tily variegated, and all edged by a fringe of alternate black and 

 white. The caterpillar of this, as well as of some other species, 

 is a leaf-roller, the teazle being the apparently uninviting plant 

 which, nevertheless, affords him board and lodging. Others 

 of the Hesperidce feed, in their caterpillar infancy, on other 

 low plants and grasses. In their partial habits of leaf-rolling, 

 (as well as their enclosure, for transformation, in slight cocoons), 

 they approach the moth, and diverge from the butterfly. 



Till within comparatively recent years moths were included 

 even by entomologists under the general denomination of 

 BUTTERFLIES of the day and of the night. Keaumur, describ- 

 ing the "Death's-head Sphinx," calls it the "Skull Butterfly." 

 The " Oak -lappet," or, as he designates it, " Le Pacquet de 

 feuilles seches " bundle of dry leaves is spoken of as a but- 

 terfly also ; and we are told of others (smallest of butterflies, 

 properly moths), not exceeding in magnitude the size qf a 

 small fly, the caterpillars of which spend their life's total, with 

 its triple changes, on the leaves of the small " Celandine," 

 Wordsworth's sylvan favourite of the spring. Nothing in- 

 deed can be more defective, as to arrangement and nomencla- 

 ture, than the entomological works of the last century, the 

 detailed accuracy (for the most part) of their description, 



* Pyrg-u-s Malvae. 



