THE HEATH FRITILLARY 
*33 
44 mm. As to sexual dif¬ 
ference, the female is usually 
larger and the ground 
colour is paler than in the 
male. 
(Upper Side.) Both sexes 
vary from a deep rich fulvous 
to a pale tawny-ochreous, 
with black markings. The 
fore wing has the base dusky ; 
the markings across the cell 
resemble the figures 08 (left 
wing) ; three tranverse 
bands cross the wing ; the 
neuration of both fore and 
hind wings is strongly out¬ 
lined with black ; the fringes 
are white, spotted with 
black. 
(Under Side.) The fore 
wing is orange-tawny, the 
apex and outer margin 
straw-yellow. The hind wing 
is white, shot with mother- 
of-pearl ; the outer margin is 
straw-yellow. Two fulvous transverse bands cross the wing, 
one at the basal third, which consists of a series of irregular 
blotches and a straight basal bar of the same colour. A curved 
sub-marginal band extends from the costa to the anal angle ; 
this is composed of a series of fulvous crescents, boldly outlined 
with black, as are all the basal markings. 
Life of Imago. The average duration of the life of M. athalia 
is about twenty-five days. 
Aberration. This species varies in much the same degree 
as both E. aurinea and M. cinxia in respect to the absence 
of the median black bands, also in the coalescence of the 
markings and the general suffusion of black scaling over the 
surface of both wings, producing more or less complete 
melanism. 
Occasionally striking recurrent aberrations occur. The 
