158 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



The pupa is generally smooth, or nearly so, quite different, there- 

 fore, from that of the Everids (already described). Little seems to be 

 known as to their habits of suspension, but most of the known species 

 appear to pupate on, or near the surface of the ground, and, if suspended 

 at all, to be usually attached to the cast larval skin by which the true 

 suspension is then really made. 



The imagines of most of the species, exhibit marked sexual dimor- 

 phism, the $ s being blue, the $ s brown, or brown marked with blue 

 and orange. In most of the Ariciids, however, the $ s as well as the 

 2 s are brown in tint, the brown usually relieved by orange or fulvous 

 marginal lunules. The development of androconia in the blue $ s 

 has been already remarked upon, but the furry " hair-scales " which 

 are usually absent in the Lycsenids (sens, restr.), Celastrinids, Everids, 

 etc., are strangely present in some Plebeiids, and absent in 

 others, apparently closely allied ; Wallengren records them as 

 failing in Aricia donzelii, Latiorina aquilo, Yacciniina optilete, and 

 Plebeian drgus (aegon), but as abundant in Plebeius argyrognomon. 

 The development of these " furry hair-scales " in the discal cell, 

 appears to be carried out to its greatest extent in Hlrsutina admetus, 

 where they extend far beyond the discal cell, whilst they are 

 comparatively rare in the allied H. dolus, and H. daman is not so very 

 largely provided therewith. On the other hand, Agriades coridon is quitd 

 as Avell-haired as H. dolus, this feature being particularly conspicuous in 

 some ot the large, pale, Spanish forms, in which they are developed, 

 as in U. admetus, not only in the discal cell of the forewing, but 

 .also along the wing-nervures. They occur freely on Agriades 

 bellargus, Polymnm.atus amandus, I', escheri, P. icarns, P. hglas, and 

 Albnlina pheretex, and, where they do not travel along the nervures, 

 the latter are usually marked b} T special scales, showing, therefore, a 

 tendency to differentiation along the nervures. 



The general character of the underside spotting is similar in all, 

 and the modifications, when they occur, readily traceable to the 

 common pattern. The long white streak on the hindwing appears to 

 be essentially Plebeiid, but is especially well-marked in Aricia and 

 Hlrsutina, traceable in Polyommatus and Agriades. The metallic 

 kernels in the marginal spots of the hindwing towards the anal 

 angle, are largely confined to the species of the genus I'lebeius, though 

 by no means entirely so, nor are they always found therein. 



The habits of the Plebeiid imagines are very similar. Confined to 

 low-growing plants, they haunt fields, meadows, pastures, waysides, 

 heaths, moorlands, flying low down near the ground, or fanning their 

 wings on flowers as they suck the nectar; the ,{ s are sometimes attracted 

 in thousands to the sides of shallow streams, to springs and runnels 

 that cross the pathway, on meadow, moor, and mountain, swilling in 

 the hot sun, and forming a tiny cloud of lovely bine life when alarmed, 

 returning again and again to the rendezvous if disturbed. By night 

 they rest, usually head downwards, on the culms of grass and other low 

 plants in sheltered spots near their foodplants; we have seen thousands 

 of Polyommatus icarus and Aricia astrarche thus at rest on the marram 

 grass in the hollows of the Deal sandhills ; equally large numbers of 

 Agriades coHdon on the Onobrychus, Ononis&nd Centaurea plants, on the 

 sheltered side of the large 1 hollow near the South Foreland lighthouse. 



