The general colour is brownish-orange, and the margins are fuscous-brown; there is a black spot towards the tips of the fore wings, and this, as a rule, encloses two white dots; one or both of these dots sometimes absent in the male. The male differs from the female in its rather smaller size, and in having a fuscous band on the central area; the latter is broadest towards the inner margin, and in this part are some patches of blackish androconial scales or plumules; at the upper end of the band there is sometimes a fuscous cloud. Occasionally, one or more small black spots, some with white pupils, are present below the apical one. Four such spots are rare, but specimens with one or with two are not uncommon. There is usually a white-pupilled black spot towards the anal angle of the hind wing, but I have several males and females that are without this spot. Sometimes there are as many as four spots on the hind wings, but this is perhaps exceptional (Plate 113, Fig. 5). On the under side of the hind wings there are often two white dots, sometimes ringed with black, towards the costa, and two or three other similar dots towards the anal angle; but the number of dots may be reduced to two, one of which is near the costa, or be increased to six. Colour changes, similar to those in the last species, occur, and the orange colour, in both sexes, may be replaced by yellow (var. _mincki_, Seebold), or by white (var. _albida_, Russell, Plate 119, Figs. 6, 7). Such aberrations are very local and rare; a few have been obtained on chalk hills in South Hampshire. In an extraordinary aberration, taken in Sussex in 1897, the whole of the dark brown colour of margins and band is replaced by pale pinkish-ochreous, but the normal brownish orange remains. Other somewhat similar specimens have been recorded. The egg (Plate 86) is pale yellowish when first laid, becoming lighter and irregularly blotched with reddish-brown, the upper blotches forming a sort of band round the egg; as the caterpillar matures the shell assumes a darker tinge, inclining to slaty, and the markings are less distinct. The caterpillar, when full grown, is pale ochreous, clothed with short pale hair, and freckled with brownish; the line down the back is darker, one on each side is paler, and that above the feet is yellowish. The head is rather darker than the body, marked with brownish, and bristly. According to Hellins, the newly hatched caterpillar is whitish-grey, with rusty yellow lines on the back. In October, after the first moult, it becomes green with a brownish head. In April the body is greenish-grey, and the head pale greenish-brown. At the end of April it moults for the last time, and is then pale ochreous generally, but some caterpillars are darker than this, and some paler with a greenish-grey tinge.