Beautiful Butterflies. 95 



SCARCE PAINTED LADY 



PLATE V. FIG. III. 



\APIL 10, or Cynthia Hunter a. Of this fly but 

 one specimen is recorded to have been taken 

 in Great Britain, and that was at Withybush, 

 near Haverfordwest, South Wales, in the midsummer 

 of 1828. It was thought to be but a variety of the 

 common kind, but afterwards discovered to belong to 

 a distinct species, occasionally plentiful in America, 

 where it is said the Caterpillar is found about the end 

 of the months of April and July, there being two 

 broods in a year. It measures about two inches and a 

 quarter across the expanse of the wings, which both in 

 colour and shape are much like those of the C. cardui. 

 We should have explained, by the way, that this word 

 means a thistle. 



The wild balsam and a kind of cudweed, called the 

 obtuse-leaved, are said to be the food of this species in 

 the larva state. Authorities differ as to the colour of 

 its Caterpillar ; its chrysalis we are told is " placed in 

 the leaves of plants folded up and spun together/' so 

 says the Rev. F. O. Morris, in his beautiful work on 

 ' British Butterflies.' 



