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
The chrysalis is pale whity-brown, hairy above, with black dots; head
and the upper edge of the wing-cases streaked with black.
Occasionally a few butterflies emerge in August, but they usually remain
in the chrysalis until May or June.
This is a woodland species, and prefers the sunny but sheltered nooks
and glades, but also resorts to the broader rides and pathways. Flowers
do not seem to have any strong attraction for it, but it may often be
seen sitting on the foliage of a bush or sapling tree. It appears to be
pretty widely distributed, although to a certain extent local,
throughout the southern half of England, but seems to have almost or
quite disappeared from the counties of Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and
Essex. Dumfries is the only locality in Scotland from which it has been
reported.
Its distribution abroad is limited to Central Europe, Denmark, Livonia,
Southern Sweden, Central Spain, North Italy, and the Balkans.
Now follow the Skippers (Hesperiidæ), of which kind of butterfly we have
eight species in England. Of these the first two belong to the
Hesperiinæ and the others to the Pamphilinæ.
The Grizzled Skipper (_Hesperia malvæ_).
The wings of the butterfly figured on Plate 122 are blackish, ornamented
with numerous white spots, which are more or less square in shape, on
the fore wings. The fringes are chequered black and white.
The male differs from the female in having the front edge of the fore
wings folded towards the base, and these wings have scattered greyish
scales on the basal area; the central series of spots on the hind wings
are also more in evidence, and not infrequently unite and become
band-like. Variation consists in modification of the markings, chiefly
in a tendency of the spots to run together, culminating in var. _taras_,
Bergstr., in which the white spots of the fore wings are confluent and
form a large blotch. This variety was figured by Petiver in 1717, but
was not named by Bergsträsser until 1780. Haworth described it as
_lavateræ_, and Newman figured it under the same name.
On a small plant of Alpine strawberry, sent by the Rev. Gilbert Raynor,
were three eggs of this butterfly. These were pale green in colour,
ribbed, and delicately netted with cross-lines. On June 26, three
caterpillars were noticed on the upper side of the leaves, each on a
separate leaf, and under cover of a few coarse silken threads. They were
pale steely-grey, with black heads, and plates on the first and last
segments of the body.
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