The Butterflies of the British IslesSouth, Richard
Science
The Butterflies of the British Isles
South, Richard
Butterflies -- Great Britain; Butterflies -- Great Britain -- Identification; Lepidoptera -- Great Britain
Both sexes of this butterfly (Plate 96) are brown with a faint golden
tinge above, and green on the under side. The male has a dark, or, when
the plumules are dislodged, pale sexual mark, which is oval in shape,
and placed at the upper corner of the discal cell in the fore wings.
Occasionally there are some orange scales at the anal angle of the hind
wings, and more rarely, and in the female, at the extremities of veins
two and three also. On the under side of some specimens, chiefly from
Northern localities, there is a transverse series of white dots across
all the wings; more often these are confined to the hind wings, and
sometimes they are almost or quite absent from all the wings. Now and
then the under side of the hind wings is found to be brown in colour,
and this change in colour has been ascribed to the action of moisture.
The life-history is figured on Plate 97.
The egg is greenish, reticulated with paler or with whitish-green; the
reticulation is somewhat rough on the side, but becomes finer towards
and on the top, which has the centre hollowed. Laid on the petals of the
common furze (_Ulex europæus_), and on leaves of rock-rose
(_Helianthemum chamæcistus_).
The caterpillar feeds in June and July. It is pale green, with a darker
line along the back, and yellow oblique stripes on the sides. Among the
plants that it has been found upon, or is known to eat, are dyer's
greenweed (_Genista tinctoria_), needle furze (_G. anglica_), broom
(_Cytisus scoparius_), dwarf furze (_Ulex nanus_), whortleberry
(_Vaccinium myrtillus_); also the berries of buckthorn (_Rhamnus_),
making holes through which the contents of the berry is extracted; buds
of bramble (_Rubus_), and of dogwood (_Cornus sanguinea_), are also
attacked in a similar way.
The chrysalis is clothed with tiny hairs, and when freshly formed is
green in colour, but becomes purplish-brown after a time. It appears to
be unattached to anything. I think, however, that there are generally a
few strands of silk around or about it, but these are so easily broken
when the chrysalids are removed that they escape observation. May and
June are the months for the butterfly, which occurs in various kinds of
situations, such as the outskirts of woods, high hedgerows, hill slopes,
and boggy heaths. I once saw it in abundance about the entrance from
Lynton to the Valley of Rocks. Its resemblance on the under side to the
leaves on which it perches is as baffling to the collector as is the
resting habit of the Grayling butterfly previously referred to. It seems
to be pretty generally distributed throughout the kingdom, but is rather
more local in Ireland than elsewhere, and it has not yet been recorded
from the Orkney or Shetland Isles. Its range extends throughout the
Palæarctic Region.
The Large Copper (_Chrysophanus dispar_).
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