Family HESPERIIDAE 
Genus ERYNNIS, Schrank, 1801 
THE DINGY SKIPPER 
Erynnis tagcs (Linn., 1758). 
(Plate XVII, facing page 196) 
T HIS very common and active little butterfly has a rapid, 
buzzing flight. It darts from one spot to another to 
settle on the bare ground with expanded wings, basking 
in the sunshine, or to rest on the lower-growing plants. Flowers 
have but little attraction for this insect during the day, but in 
dull weather and at night, it resorts to the flower-heads of 
plants and grasses to rest upon ; and, unlike other butterflies, it 
assumes a resting attitude similar to that of moths. This 
remarkable habit was first recorded by the late Rowland 
Trimen in The Entomologists' Weekly Intelligencer in 1857, 
but this curious and normal resting posture seemed to have 
escaped the subsequent notice of entomologists until twenty- 
six years afterwards, when on June 12th, 1S83, I rediscovered 
the same resting position of this butterfly and described and 
figured it in The Entomologist, Vol. XVII, 1884. While 
searching for “Blues ” at rest on the evening of June 12th 
that year I noticed a grass head which appeared weighty with 
what I first thought was some kind of Noctuid moth at rest 
upon it, but on closer examination I found it to be E. tages. 
The wings were held in exactly the same position as those of 
a Noctua when resting. The fore wings entirely covered the 
hind wings, the head was bowed so as to touch the grass and 
the antennae were bent backwards parallel to the costal 
margins of the wings. The colouring of both butterfly and 
grass head were of exact similarity, and coupled with the 
position taken up on the brown tuft, the whole formed a perfect 
and remarkable disguise. Again in The Entomologist, Vol. 
XXXII, I published a further note on the subject, recording 
3 - 1 8 
