828 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



and, consulting your list, I found that species down as ' wanted.' She 

 was settling on a low-growing species of Origanum I think, and very 

 careful she was about choosing a suitable head of flowers. I watched 

 her visit about a dozen plants, but I think she laid only one egg in that 

 time. After settling, she would walk all over the flower-head testing 

 it with her antennae, and if it appeared suitable, she would prod about 

 with the end of her body, inserting it between the bracts and flower- 

 buds, but apparently she only once found a suitable spot. Then she 

 was still for a few seconds, straining the egg out. Immediately after- 

 wards she new off. Although I was certain she had laid an egg on 

 that particular flower-head, it was some time before I discovered it 

 down on the lower surface of a bud, and hidden by a bract so that 

 these had to be separated with the forceps before the greenish-white egg 

 could be seen. Many times the $ settled on a head of flowers and 

 flew off again almost at once, evidently finding something wrong. 

 Faded flower-heads did not suit her." 



Egg. — Measures •52mrn. in width, -32mm. in height ; of a com- 

 pressed globular form, sunken in centre, so much so that the 

 micropylar area appears as a dark central spot. The entire surface is 

 finely and beautifully reticulated by an irregular network pattern. 

 The colour is pale bluish- white (Frohawk, July 9th, 1896). Circular 

 in outline, flattened, covered all over, except a central depressed spot 

 on top, w T ith fine raised irregular reticulation, wmich in profile stands 

 out strongly ; colour of shell of the blue-green of a hedge-sparrow's 

 egg ; the reticulation transparent white. About thrice the bulk of the 

 egg of C. minima (Hellins). 



The egg is a spheroid, much depressed at the upper pole, concave 

 at its nadir, where it was very slightly attached. The surface of the 

 egg reticulated, the network projecting and thus communicating a 

 cellular or honeycombed appearance to the egg ; the cells are shallow, 

 much more so than those of a honeycomb, and the surface rather more 

 resembling that of a cow's stomach ; the septa dividing the cells are 

 extremely thin, and at every junction of septa is an elevated process 

 almost spine-like, the array of which is very conspicuous when the egg- 

 is viewed in profile ; the cells are of nearly equal size except at the 

 north pole and its immediate vicinity, where they suddenly decrease in 

 size, and are, in fact, exceedingly small. The colour and texture of 

 the egg much resemble white porcelain, with the slightest possible tint 

 of green, excepting the circular space at the pole occupied by the 

 smaller cells where the green tint is very decided, and the limits of this 

 darker colour are clearly defined. The empty eggshell was perfectly 

 colourless, and exhibited a still greater resemblance to fine porcelain. 

 A larva left the egg July 4th, 1870 (Newman). 



The egg is of the cheese shape of many Lycaanid eggs, i.e., the top 

 and bottom are flat and parallel, the sides rounded. It is OGmm. 

 across at the widest part, z.<°., half way up, and 0-3 mm. high. The 

 actual top and bottom are 0*48mm. across. The sides, therefore, 

 project O'OGmm. and are regularly curved, from top to bottom. 



The mycropylar area is 012mrn. across and seems to be a depression 

 only in so far that it is without the white coating of the rest of the 

 egg. It is usually not far from circular, the example photographed is 

 exceptionally angular. The cells forming it are somewhat irregularly 

 disposed, but roughly conform to four or five circles of cells surrounding 



