+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | | | EXPLANATION OF PLATE IX | | | | | | 1. _Argynnis diana_, Cramer, ♂. | | 2. _Argynnis diana_, Cramer, ♀. | | 3. _Argynnis cybele_, Fabricius, ♂. | | 4. _Argynnis cybele_, Fabricius, ♀. | | 5. _Argynnis leto_, Behr, ♂. | | 6. _Argynnis leto_, Behr, ♀. | | | | | | [Illustration PLATE IX.] | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ Genus ARGYNNIS, Fabricius (The Fritillaries, the Silver-spots) "July is the gala-time of butterflies. Most of them have just left the chrysalis, and their wings are perfect and very fresh in color. All the sunny places are bright with them, yellow and red and white and brown, and great gorgeous fellows in rich velvet-like dresses of blue-black, orange, green, and maroon. Some of them have their wings scalloped, some fringed, and some plain; and they are ornamented with brilliant borders and fawn-colored spots and rows of silver crescents.... They circle about the flowers, fly across from field to field, and rise swiftly in the air; little ones and big ones, common ones and rare ones, but all bright and airy and joyous--a midsummer carnival of butterflies."--FRANK H. SWEET. _Butterfly._--Butterflies of medium or large size, generally with the upper surface of the wings reddish-fulvous, with well-defined black markings consisting of waved transverse lines, and rounded discal and sagittate black markings near the outer borders. On the under side of the wings the design of the fore wings is generally somewhat indistinctly repeated, and the hind wings are marked more or less profusely with large silvery spots. In a few cases there is wide dissimilarity in color between the male and the female sex; generally the male sex is marked by the brighter red of the upper surface, and the female by the broader black markings, the paler ground-color, and the sometimes almost white lunules, which are arranged outwardly at the base of the sagittate spots along the border. [Illustration FIG. 89.--Neuration of the genus _Argynnis_.]