Beautiful Butterflies. 79 



to look like new by all the dyers and scourers in 

 Butterfly land. I shall not attempt to describe these 

 wings, for all my readers have seen the Small Tortoise- 

 shell fly, and often enough to know every marking; 

 should any of them unhappily belong to that class of 

 persons who go about the world with their eyes shut, 

 they can open them for once, and look at the beautiful 

 pictures with which our artist has illustrated this 

 volume, and they will see at a glance what it would 

 take many words to express in a very imperfect manner. 

 The under side of the wings is a dull brown, approach- 

 ing to a black, with here and there a streak of blue, and 

 waving lines of dusky white, and irregular bands of 

 deeper colour. 



The Caterpillar of this species may be found most 

 usually on the leaves of the elm tree, where they feed, 

 numbers of them together, under little silken tents, 

 spun out of their own bodies ; their colour is a bluish- 

 brown, and along each side runs abroad band of orange, 

 which, with numerous tufts of yellowish hair, gives 

 them quite a gay appearance. After the first change of 

 skin they break up their family parties, and disperse to 

 seek their livelihood singly ; they are sometimes found 

 on the willow and several kinds of fruit trees, especially 

 the cherry. 



The chrysalis is brownish flesh-colour, with golden 



