Fig. 161.—Peacock Butterfly (Vanessa Io).
We give here a drawing of the small Tortoise-shell (Vanessa urticæ, [Fig. 160]), which resembles the preceding, but is smaller. Its caterpillar, bristly, blackish, with four yellowish lines, lives in companies on the nettle. The Peacock Butterfly (Vanessa Io, [Fig. 161]) is very easily recognised by the peacock's eyes—to the number of four, one on each wing—which have gained for it the name it bears. The eye on the upper wings is reddish in the middle and surrounded by a yellowish circle. That on the lower ones is blackish, with a grey circle round it, and contains bluish spots. The upper part of the wings is of a russety brown, the under part blackish. This Vanessa is met with in the woods, in lucerne fields, and in gardens. Its spiny caterpillar is of a shiny black with white dots, and lives in companies on nettles. The chrysalis, at first greenish, then brownish, is ornamented with golden spots.
Fig. 162.—Camberwell Beauty (Vanessa Antiopa).
The Vanessa Antiopa ([Fig. 162]), one of the greatest of entomological rarities in England, is not very common in the woods about Paris, but it is frequently found in the environs of Bordeaux, and, above all, at the Grande Chartreuse (in the department of Isère). The Parisian collectors go as far as Fontainebleau in pursuit of this beautiful species, with angular wings, of a dark purple black, with a yellowish or whitish band on the hind border and a succession of blue spots above it. The caterpillar is black, and bristly, with red spots. It lives in companies on the birch, the aspen, the elm, and different kinds of willows. The pupa is blackish, sprinkled with a bluish powder, and has ferruginous-coloured dots. The butterfly, which emerges from the chrysalis in July and August, is found, after hybernation, at the end of February and until May. It flies very rapidly, and is very difficult to catch.