155 



wings are very thinly scaled, and the dull red changed into chocolate. ■ Two 

 varieties have been named, loides, Ochs., and Sardoa, Staud., Cat. The 

 first is smaller, and the latter, which occurs in Sardinia, larger than the type. 



The egg, admirably figured by Sep., is oblong, with eight highly elevated 

 ribs, and is of a grass green colour with a black cover at the top. 



The caterpillar is black and velvety, long, rather slender, and with well 

 marked segments ; the body is covered with long black branched spines, and 

 numerous white warts ; the head is large, black, and shining, having warts 

 sprinkled over it ; the legs are black, and the claspers flesh coloured. It 

 feeds on the common stinging nettle {Urtica dioica), in June and July. Mr. 

 Hellins says the caterpillars are irritable when disturbed, both walking 

 quickly and flinging about their heads, and ejecting from their mouths a dark 

 greenish fluid. They feed together in families. 



The chrysalis is long, stout, and mostly cylindrical, though a little angu- 

 lated, the skin wrinkled. The head has two triangular diverging horns , the 

 back of the thorax rises in an abrupt curve, and has in the middle a short 

 spike, it falls in at the waist, whence the abdomen goes in a long curve to 

 the tail and is set with sub-dorsal rows of spines, and the abdomen ends in a 

 long stem-like spike. There are two varieties of colour, one pale greenish 

 yellow, the other pale grey, but freckled all over with smoky black. There 

 is a metallic lustre, and the wing cases and antennas cases are marked out by 

 lines of freckles. According to Albin, it is subject to the attack of a Hymen- 

 opterous parasite, which appears to be Pteromalus puparum. 



The butterfly emerges in August, and appears to hibernate earlier than the 

 Bed Admiral. It re-appears in spring. 



Vanessa Io is common throughout the * year in Central and Southern 

 Europe, and Western and Northern Asia as far as Japan. It is said to be 

 absent from Andalusia and Sicily, and is rare in Northern Europe, including 

 Scotland. It is generally distributed in England and Ireland, but most com- 

 mon in the South. In Scotland it is rare, and does not occur beyond the 

 Caledonian Canal. 



It was figured by Thomas Moufet, in 1633, accompanied with the follow- 

 description : " Omnium Eegina dici potest ; nam extremis abi, veluti adaman- 

 tes quatuor in pala Hyacinthina radiantes, mfras opulentias ostendunt, imo 

 fere adamanti Hyacintho oculum effodiunt. Lucent enim pulcherrime (ut 

 Stellas) Scintillasqne iricolores circumfundunt : his notis ita dignoscitur, ut 

 religuum corpus describere (licet varius pictum coloribus) supervacaneum 

 esset." 



It is also figured and described in Martin Lister's edition of Goedart, 

 1685. 



