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
In a general way the male is rather larger than the female, but this is
not invariably the case. The colour of the male varies in shade, and
very occasionally, perhaps, is of a lilac tint; the border varies in
width, and is sometimes reduced to a mere line. In the female the orange
marks may be of a brownish or yellowish tint, and now and then there may
be a series of wedge-shaped blue spots above these marks on the hind
wings. On the under side there is a good deal of modification of the
black spots as regards size and shape, and occasionally there is at
least one extra spot on the fore wings placed between the discal spot
and the base of the wing; white markings sometimes appear on the fore
wings between the outer series of black spots and the orange band, and
with this there is generally a white band in a similar position on the
hind wings. Female specimens with splashes of the male colour on one or
more of the wings have been obtained, and, more rarely, examples
entirely male on one side and female on the other have been recorded.
Frohawk states that the egg both in colour and texture, resembles white
porcelain; "all the depths produce a deep purplish-grey shade. The ova
are deposited singly, and adhere firmly to the receptacle."
Caterpillars hatched out from eggs, laid the previous summer, on April
1st to 3rd. They were reared on gorse (_Ulex europæus_), pupated towards
the end of June, and the first butterfly, a male, appeared on July 10th.
The caterpillar figured on Plate 104, when full grown, was
reddish-brown, finely dotted with white, and from each dot a tiny hair
arose; the stripe on the back and line on the side were black edged with
white, head black and shining. This caterpillar was found on the last
day of May, crawling on the ground under heather at Oxshott. It was then
about half-grown, and was reared on heather, pupated in due course, and
produced a female butterfly on July 11th.
The chrysalis, of which two figures are given, had a pale brownish and
rather shining head; the body was brown with a darker line on the back;
the thorax and wing-cases dull yellowish-green, the former rather
glossy. It was placed in an angle formed by a side and the floor of the
cage, lying quite flat and secured by silken threads, which, owing to
position, I was unable to examine. Some of the caterpillars that Mr.
Frohawk reared were pale green with a dark purplish stripe on the back.
Another food-plant is bird's-foot vetch (_Ornithopus perpusillus_).
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