270 GILDING OF MOTHS. 



seem often to reflect its rays upon their surfaces in streaks of 

 burnished gold. These gilded effects are easily to be observed 

 in August among the chrysalides of the small tortoiseshell 

 butterfly (Vanessa Urticce\ which, having by that time, as 

 caterpillars, gorged their fill of nettles, are often to be found 

 suspended, head downwards, on the stalks they have stripped, 

 or on some convenient wall or pale adjacent.* Of these, some 

 are much more gorgeously arrayed than others.. The aurelia 

 of the "Painted Lady"f is another which well deserves its 

 name for the gold-like streaks and speckles which variegate 

 its clouded surface. That of the large Tortoiseshell, or Elm, 

 which we have found sometimes suspended to a stalk of 

 grass, has a coat of buff bedecked with silver. 



This natural gilding is by no means confined to chrysalides. 

 The T mothj displays its character in gold or silver on the 

 upper surface of each primary wing ;* another, the "Burnished 

 Brass, " owes its names to two resplendent bands which 

 resemble that metal or yellow gold, crossing its anterior 

 pinions ; while a tribe of our native butterflies, named Fri- 

 tillaries,\ not uncommon in grassy meadows, have the under 

 side of their wings adorned with silvery spots and streaks. 



But of all the Lepidoptera, none, perhaps, are so richly 

 emblazoned, in proportion to their size, as the minute mothsl" 

 which come of leaf-mining caterpillars, these having been said 



* See Vignette. t Cynthia Cardui. f Plusia gamma. 



Plusia chry sites. \ Genus Argynnis and Melitcea. 



1 Of the genus (Ecophora. 



