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
Var. _eos_ of Haworth (the Dark Underwing Fritillary) is the _pyronia_
of Hübner and Stephens, and a modification of var. _corythalia_, Hübn.
On the under side the fore wings are fulvous, and have two black spots
in the discal cell, and a black band, intersected by the veins, on the
central area. On the hind wings the basal third is fulvous with eight
black spots; the central area is whitish intersected by the black veins.
On the yellow-tinged whitish outer area there is a series of
black-margined orange crescents; a row of black lunules precedes a thin
black line on the outer margin.
The egg is upright, ribbed, and pale whitish-green in colour. As the
caterpillar matures the shell becomes greyish. The eggs were laid in a
cluster on a leaf of cow-wheat (_Melampyrum pratense_) as shown in the
figure, but failed to hatch.
The full-grown caterpillar is black on the back, becoming olive tinged
on the sides and olive-brown underneath; the divisions between the rings
are olive. The whole of the upper surface, except a line along the
middle of the back, is dotted with white, and there are eleven
white-tipped orange or yellowish spines on each ring, except the last
two and the three nearest the head; the first and the last each have
four spines, the third has eight, and the second and the eleventh have
each ten spines. The head is black marked with white, and is clothed
with short, stiff, black hair or bristles (Buckler). The chrysalis is
pale whitish-ochreous, the markings on the wing-cases are black, and
those on the other parts are orange and black.
Cow-wheat appears to be the chief food of the caterpillar, but it will
also eat, and has been found on, foxglove (_Digitalis purpurea_) and
woodsage (_Teucrium scorodonia_). Plantain is also said to be a
food-plant, but Buckler says that his caterpillars would not eat this.
The caterpillars are rather shy in their habits, and, except when the
sun is shining brightly, require to be carefully looked for among their
food-plant and the dead leaves, etc., around. They hatch from the egg in
July, feed for a few weeks, and then hibernate in companies under a web.
In April and May they become active again, feed up quickly, and appear
as butterflies in June and early July.
The species is, unfortunately, becoming scarcer in England than it used
to be. It seems quite to have disappeared from some of the districts in
which it was formerly common. No doubt in one or two of its old and
well-known localities the butterflies, and perhaps the caterpillars
also, have been too freely taken, and its natural enemies have probably
completed the business. Clearings in woods or heathy borders of woods
are the kind of places this species appear to prefer. Its headquarters
in any given locality seems to be changed from time to time, so that the
exact spot where it will occur next year cannot be predicted from this
year's observations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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