The butterfly affects open places in, or the edges of, woods in chalky districts, also the slopes of chalk downs and other hillsides, as well as railway banks and even rough fields. It evidently delights in sunshine, and may often be seen basking on a stone or the bare earth. When at rest at night or on dull days it sits on a dead seed-head or grass glume, with the wings closed down over its back like a noctuid moth, and is then difficult to detect until the eye becomes accustomed to its appearance. It is widely distributed in Great Britain, but it is more at home on chalk and limestone than elsewhere. In such localities as the fens of Norfolk and Cambridge it is scarce, and seems to have a rather limited distribution in Ireland, in which country Galway is its headquarters, according to Kane. Abroad, it is found throughout Europe, and its range extends to Western Asia. The Small Skipper (_Adopæa thaumas_). All the wings are brownish-orange, with the veins darker and becoming black towards the outer margins, especially on the fore wings. The male has a black sexual mark (Plate 125). Except that the colour varies in the direction of a pale golden tint there is little in the way of aberration in this butterfly. At least one gynandrous specimen has been recorded. The following descriptions of the early stages (Plate 124), as well as the figures of the caterpillar and the chrysalis, are from Buckler's "Larvæ of British Butterflies":-- The egg "is of a long oval figure, half as long again as wide, the shell glistening, devoid of ribs or reticulation; at first white, then turning dull yellowish, and at last paler again, with the dark head of the caterpillar showing through. The young caterpillar eats part of the empty egg-shell." The full-grown caterpillar is of a delicate light green, the stripe along the back is rather bluish-green, with paler green central and side lines; the spiracles are flesh-coloured, and below these there is a somewhat creamy-white stripe. The head is deeper green than the body, and roughened with minute points. It feeds in June on _Holcus lanatus_, _Brachypodium sylvaticum_, and probably other kinds of soft grasses, and its assimilation, both in colour and texture, with the blades of grass is remarkable. Before changing to the chrysalis it encloses itself within two or sometimes three leaves of the grass, joined together longitudinally by lacing or spinning with white silk, the edges more or less close to each other, and becomes completely hidden. The chrysalis is secured in the silken chamber, head upward, by an oblique cincture behind the thorax, and the anal tip fastened by a fan-like spread of fine hooks at the extremity fixed in the silk. The colour is similar to that of the caterpillar, and the lines are fairly in evidence. Caterpillars that spun up on June 18 to 23 produced butterflies on July 15 and 16.