THE SPECKLED WOOD 9 



long winter sleep, in April and May. Look out 

 for the butterfly in July and the early part of 

 August. 



PLATE v 

 THE SPECKLED WOOD (1) 



As you walk through a wood on a bright sunny 

 day at the end of April, or in the beginning of 

 May, you may often see a dark brown butterfly 

 marked with a number of paler spots, which flits 

 along just in front of you for some little distance, 

 and then mounts up over your head and flies 

 back the way it came. This is a Speckled Wood 

 butterfly, or Wood Argus, as it is sometimes 

 called. Argus, as perhaps you know, was a 

 heathen god, who was supposed to have a hun- 

 dred eyes. And his name has been given to the 

 butterfly on account of the row of eye-like spots 

 which runs along the margin of the hinder wings. 



The caterpillar of this butterfly, which is a 

 pretty little green creature with a white stripe 

 along each side, and a dark brown one along 

 its back, feeds on different kinds of grass, first 

 in August and September, and then again in 

 March. Before it enters into its long winter 

 sleep it throws off its skin no less than five times 

 and appears in a new one, which has been 

 forming underneath the old coat. And, strange 

 to say, it always eats its own cast skins! The 



