PYRAMEIS CARDUI.
Plate II.—Fig. 5.
This insect, which is the English Painted Lady, might at first sight be taken for a faded Atalanta. The caterpillar lives generally solitary on hollyhock, nettle, or mallow, curling itself up in a leaf It is of a grey-brown colour, thickly sprinkled with hairs, a yellow line fringed by reddish dots runs along each side. It is found in most localities up to a considerable elevation, from February till well on into the summer. The butterfly is of a tawny red colour, shading off to brown at the base of the fore-wings, with dark markings and oblong black spots. The apex of the wings is marked and edged in white, similar to the Atalanta. The hind-wings are of the same tawny red colour, having a line of five round black spots running along each lower margin. The fore-wings are marked on the under-side as above, the colour, however, being redder. The hind-wings are pale buff, olive brown, and white, having four or five blue-black eyes near the lower margin, the two centre eyes being smaller than the others, which are circled by black and white. Its flight is very swift, and its erratic and rapid gyrations from side to side make it a difficult specimen to net.