The male has the discal area of the fore wings bright fulvous, and the outer area broadly brown; the sexual mark is black; the hind wings are tinged with fulvous on the disc, and have brighter fulvous spots. The female is brown with a fulvous discal wedge on the fore wings, and an angulate series of fulvous spots beyond; hind wings as in the male, but spots rather more defined. In some examples of this sex the spots on the fore wings are confluent, and the discal area is then fulvous as in the male (Plate 126). The egg is whitish or greenish-white, and is laid on a blade of grass. Hellins states that from eggs laid about July 1 the caterpillars hatched on July 13; they chose cocks-foot grass (_Dactylis glomerata_) for food, and rested in the middle of a blade, fastening its edges across with five or six distinct little ropes of white silk. The young caterpillar figured on Plate 127 was on September 11 about half an inch in length, and had been removed from the grass tube, also shown, to be figured; the head was then pale brown, bordered and lined with purplish brown; the body was darkish green, paler on the last ring, and with darker lines on the back and sides. After hibernation (the figure of this stage of the caterpillar is from Buckler), in May, the caterpillar is about one inch long, pale green in colour; the skin is thickly covered with very short dark brown bristles, "the head dirty white with a dark brown stripe down the outer edge of each lobe, the neck whitish-green" (Hellins). The chrysalis was formed in the grass cocoon shown with it. The general colour was brown with the wing-cases darker, and a darker suffusion on the back. The egg-laying of this butterfly has been observed by Mr. Ullyett, who states that the female, having selected a suitable grass-stem, deposits eggs in a line in a sheath formed by the leaf round the stem. The caterpillars hibernate in tubes of grass, and feed up in the spring. This butterfly has been supposed to be double brooded, but there does not seem to be any direct evidence that this is so. It is on the wing in grassy places on the slopes of downs and other hillsides, also in rides, and on the margins of woods, from early June until well into July, and sometimes even later in the year. It is found in most of our English counties, and also in Scotland, south of the Forth. In Ireland it is not uncommon in a meadow in Lord Kenmare's demesne, Killarney, and has been recorded from the Morrough of Wicklow. Abroad its distribution extends through Europe and Northern Asia to China and Japan, and also to North Africa. The Silver-spotted Skipper (_Augiades comma_).