32 BUTTERFLIES 



PLATE XVII 

 THE GRIZZLED SKIPPER (i) 



Skipper butterflies are common enough in 

 almost all parts of the country; yet very few 

 people ever seem to notice them. The reason 

 is that they hardly look like butterflies at all. 

 They look much more like little grey or brown 

 moths. Yet they are really butterflies, for if you 

 look at them closely you will see that their feelers 

 have little knobs at the tips. And that is one 

 of the marks of a butterfly. 



It is very easy to see why these little insects 

 are called " Skippers," for they seem to skip from 

 flower to flower in a manner quite unlike the 

 flight of any other butterfly. And the Grizzled 

 Skipper is one of the commonest of them all. 

 You may see it darting about in May, and again 

 in August, in open grassy places in woods. But 

 it only seems to live for a short time, so that 

 although it may be flying about in numbers one 

 day, two or three days later it will have quite 

 disappeared. The caterpillar is sometimes green 

 and sometimes brown in colour, with paler lines 

 along its back and sides. It feeds for a few weeks 

 on bramble leaves, and then turns into a dull 

 white chrysalis spotted with black. 



