Beautiful Butterflies, 93 



the under side, which looks like an exquisite piece of 

 mosaic or inlaid work, in which the several pieces of 

 red, orange, buff, olive, brown of various shades, black, 

 and white, are nicely fitted in to form a diversified 

 pattern, with small white veins dividing the compart- 

 ments. Near the outer edge of the under pair is a row 

 of four or five round spots, encircled with rings, so that 

 they resemble eyes : on a close examination it will be 

 seen that two of these are powdered in the centre with 

 green, and two with blue. Between these and the 

 edge of the wing is a row of small purple crescent- 

 shaped spots. Over the whole of the under side of the 

 upper pair is spread a delicate crimson flash, like that 

 which tells the approaching dawn of a summer's day. 

 The body of the insect is clothed with reddish brown 

 hairs above, and white beneath. 



The Caterpillar, which is found generally in July, 

 is of a reddish brown colour, with interrupted yellow 

 lines along the sides ; it is pretty thickly covered with 

 hairs. It feeds upon thistles, nettles, mallows, arti- 

 chokes, and several other plants, and lives singly. 

 The chrysalis is light brown, with ash-coloured lines 

 and golden spots; it is of an irregular angular shape. 



The expanded wings of this insect sometimes mea- 

 sure two inches and three quarters across. It is gene- 

 rally somewhat scarce in England, although it occa- 

 sionally occurs in great abundance ; in the year 1828 



