46 



distinctly along the courses of the veins. On the underside both sexes are 

 nearly alike, the hind- wings being of a general light blue tint, with black 

 spots, and a red band near the margin ; and the fore- wings having a yellow- 

 ish tinge, with a row of seven black spots between the centre and the hind 

 margin, and another row of three between the middle and the fore margin . 



The expanse across the wings varies from one inch and five lines to two 

 inches and two lines. Very few varieties are known. There is a female in 

 my own collection, which is almost entirely black, and a specimen in Mr. 

 Sidebotham's collection seems to approach the variety Schmidtii of P/ilceas, 

 having the forewings inclining to silvery towards the hind margin. On the 

 Continent occurs the variety Rutilus, which is smaller, and has smaller spots, 

 and is found in France, Germany, and Italy. It has been recorded as British 

 under the name of Hippothoe. Concerning this, my father wrote in " London's 

 Magazine/ 1 for 1834, " Mr. Haworth told me that they came out of an old 

 cabinet called the Kentish Cabinet, and were said to have been taken near 

 Faversham. I had a male and a female from the late Mr. Latham, which 

 were from Capt. Lindegren's cabinet, whence, probably, all the supposed 

 British specimens came/' 



The caterpillar is somewhat hairy, bright green, with innumerable white 

 dots. It used to feed on the Great Water Dock (Rumex hydrolapathuni) , 

 and was hatched from the egg in August or September, and hybernating 

 before growing much, reappeared in spring to feed up by May or June. 



The chrysalis was at first green, then pale ash-coloured, with a dark dor- 

 sal line, and two abbreviated white ones on each side, and lastly sometimes 

 deep brown (Stephens). It was very obese, blunt at both extremities, 

 attached by minute hooks at the caudal extremities, and also by a belt of 

 of silk round the middle (Newman.) 



The butterfly used to emerge from the chrysalis state in June and July, 

 the 25th of June being the earliest known date. 



Some butterflies of this very rare species, so Lewin, in ] 793 informs us in 

 his " Insects of Great Britain," were met with by a gentleman in Hunting- 

 donshire, on a moorish piece of land, and were afterwards sent to Mr. Seymer, 

 P.L.S., of Dorsetshire, who presented them to the late Duchess Dowager of 

 of Portland. 



Haworth, in 1803, informs us in his " Lepidoptera Britannica," that the 

 butterfly in July frequents the marshes of Cambridgeshire in certain but un- 

 determinable years. That it is a new and very beautiful species to England, 

 lately detected by himself and his very dear friends W. Skrimshire and "F. 

 Skrimshire, M.D., and formerly in Wales by the celebrated botanist Hudson; 

 but nowhere in Scotland, as Donovan hath said from erroneous information. 



