Il8 THE BUTTERFLIES OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



sometimes present below one or other of the usual ones. The 

 bands of the wings are pale ochreous in some examples, and 

 rust-coloured in others ; but it is not unusual for a specimen with 

 ochreous bands on the fore wings to have rust-coloured bands 

 on the hind wings, or ochreous bands with rust-coloured patches 

 on the outer portion ; these patches are most frequently tri- 

 angular in shape, and placed between the veins. Gynandrous 

 specimens also occur, but very rarely. 



The egg is of a dull creamy tint, ribbed, and with a slight 

 depression on the top. The eggs were laid early in August, on 

 blades and stems of a kind of grass ; also on the leno covering, 

 and the sides of the glass jar in which the female butterfly was 

 enclosed. 



The caterpillar when full grown " is drab, delicately mottled, 

 with longitudinal stripes broadest along the middle segments, 

 viz. a dorsal stripe of olive-brown, very dark at the beginning 

 of each segment, with a thin edging of brownish- white. Along 

 the subdorsal region are three stripes, of which the first is 

 composed of a double narrow line of yellowish-brown, the 

 second wider of the mottled ground colour, edged with paler 

 above and with white below ; the third of similar width is of a 

 dark grey-brown, edged above with black. The spiracular stripe 

 is broader and of nearly equal width, pale ochreous-brown, 

 edged with brownish-white both above and below ; the spiracles 

 are black. The head is brown, and the principal stripes of 

 the body are delicately marked with darker brown " (Buckler). 



The chrysalis is described as " obtuse, rounded, tumid, and 

 smooth, the abdominal rings scarcely visible, and wholly of a 

 deep red mahogany colour." It was "in a hollow space a 

 quarter of an inch below the surface, the particles of sand and 

 earth very slightly cohering together, and close to the roots 

 of the grass, yet free from them." The figures of caterpillar 

 and chrysalis are drawn from those in Buckler's " Larvas of 

 British Butterflies." 



