PLATE 8.
1. [Red Admiral]
2. [Painted Lady]
3. [Milk Weed]
4. [White Admiral]
5. [Purple Emperor] (Male)
The Brimstone Butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni), [Plate IV.], Fig. 2.—When I glance at this beautiful butterfly, I always feel inclined to laugh, not at the butterfly—oh dear no!—but at a practical joke I once saw through, much to the astonishment of a soldier friend. He had brought home a large assortment of fine butterflies from India, and in going over the stock my attention was arrested by the peculiar pattern on one of them. For ground colour and outline it certainly resembled our own Brimstone, but what weird markings! Turning the hand-glass on it revealed the fact that it was hand-painted. I asked the sergeant who did this, and then he suddenly remembered, and gave vent to a loud guffaw. “The scamps, by Jove! That carries me back to a certain mess-room at Darjeeling when this insect was handed over to me by a certain young officer as a great rarity. He was sure there was not another like it in the camp; and he was right. Lots of our fellows went ‘butterfly dodging,’ and had big collections to take home; but not one of them had this one. They named it ‘The Officer’s Fancy.’ Now, I recollect seeing this same officer out sketching and fooling around with a box of paints. It’s clever, though, isn’t it? He took us all completely in.” This was hardly to be wondered at! The colours had been very delicately laid on, and the pattern adopted was of the eye-spot and streak order, so that the whole effect was quite harmonious and in good taste.
But the Brimstone requires no artificial aids to make it a warm favourite with all butterfly lovers; if it lacks variety of colouring, it more than makes up for it in the beautiful sweeping outlines of the wings. No other butterfly on our list can show such sweet harmony of line and contour. Like a breeze-blown daffodil, he greets us on our early spring rambles, just when the opening blossoms and leafy buds are all doubly welcome, in that we have missed their friendly presence through the long days of winter. The female hibernates in all sorts of out-of-the-way corners—in dense holly-bushes, piles of brushwood, chinks of walls, etc., coming forth again in May or even earlier to deposit her eggs on the Buckthorn and its allies. The antennæ are rather short and more like a club than a drum-stick, while the beautiful white silken mane along the back is quite a noticeable feature. The female is of a much lighter tint than the male.
The caterpillar is green, with paler sides, along which runs a white line: it may be found on the Buckthorn from May till July. The chrysalis, which is supported on the tail and band principle, is green and yellow, and rather oddly shaped. It hatches in the course of about three weeks. This butterfly is a plentiful insect south of the Border, but we have yet to record it for Scotland.
The Small Pearl-Bordered Fritillary (Argynnis Selene), [Plate IV.], Fig. 7.—Like all the members of its family the ground colour of the wings of this insect is a reddish-brown, marbled and spotted with black. For size it differs little from the next species, and the upper surface of the two being so much alike, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between them. The under side ([Plate X.], Fig. 3), especially of the hind-wings, however, renders the task of identification comparatively easy: the ground colour is a deeper brown in this species and causes the pearl border to stand out in stronger relief; besides, numerous other pearl spots brighten its surface. It is a local butterfly, with a wide range of distribution both in England and Scotland; and where it does occur it is generally common. In the South it may be double brooded, but in the North the June flight is all we see of it for the year.
The caterpillar is black, with an interrupted white line along the back; the spines are brown; it feeds on the dog violet (Viola canina). The chrysalis is ash-coloured.
The Pearl-Bordered Fritillary (Argynnis Euphrosyne), [Plate IV.], Fig. 8.—Perhaps this is the commoner of these twin butterflies, though its range of distribution is much the same as the foregoing. In its case, also, the under side of the hind-wings furnishes us with the main points of distinction. Here the markings are a warm mid-red shade on an ochreous ground; the pearl border is very pronounced, and in the middle of the wing a single pearl reposes. Nearer the body there is another smaller spot hardly so bright. If you set several of these two species with the under side uppermost, you will soon get quite familiar with the difference between them. [Plate X.], Figs. 3, 5, shows this distinction.
The caterpillar is similar to the last species and prefers Viola as a food-plant, but I have found it in little colonies where it most certainly must have fed on other plants, as Violas of any species were distinctly rare in the district, which is wet and marshy. For Scotland there is a single brood in June, while in the South it is double-brooded—May and August.