256 
LYCAENIDAE 
object by a girdle round the waist and by the cremastral hooks 
to a rather loose silken pad. The summer stage of the pupa 
is about eighteen days, and that of the winter pupa about 
six months. 
Imago. The average expanse of the wings is about 35 mm. 
The sexual difference is very distinct. 
Male . (Upper Side.) The male is a delicate light blue, 
tinged with lilac. The fore and hind wings are narrowly 
margined with black. The fringes.are white, spotted with 
black in the fore wing, and occasionally so in the hind wing. 
Female. (Upper Side.) The ground colour is similar to 
that of the male ; there is a black discoidal spot and a broad 
black marginal border in the spring brood, which in the 
summer brood extends from the discoidal spot to the apex 
and outer margin, where it is much broader than in the spring 
brood. The hind wing of the latter has a sub-marginal row 
of black crescents, while in the summer brood the hind wing 
is broadly margined with blackish. The neuration is often 
outlined with white and the blue is more or less clouded with 
whitish. The eyes are naked. 
Under Side. (Both Sexes.) The sexes are similar on the 
under side ; the colour is a very pale silvery-blue, sparsely 
speckled with black. Sometimes the markings are reduced 
to mere specks of black. 
Life of Imago. This delicately-coloured little butterfly 
rapidly becomes more or less damaged when on the wing, and 
its life appears to be of short duration, probably between fifteen 
and twenty days. 
Aberration. The blue colouring is variable in depth and 
brilliancy in both sexes. Sometimes it is a rich purplish-blue, 
and in an opposite extreme of a very light silvery pearl-blue. 
Between these extremes a variety of tints occurs, some bright 
blue, and others lilac-blue, the normal colouring of the male 
being a clear lilac-blue. Striking aberrations are of rare 
occurrence, so are gynandromorphous specimens. 
