The two fine female specimens figured on the plate have a more or less distinct wedge-shaped black spot in the basal end of the discal cell of the fore wings. Dale mentions that he has an "almost entirely black" example of the female in his collection.
The var. rutilus, which is the continental form of our butterfly, is smaller in size, as a rule, the spots are not so large, and the orange band is always narrower on the under side of the hind wings. It has been averred that some of the British specimens are referable to this form.
Newman, writing about 1870, gave the following life-history details:—"The egg is laid on the leaves of the great water-dock (Rumex hydrolapathum) during the month of August, and the young caterpillars (never, to the best of my belief, observed) probably emerge during the following month, and hibernate very early at the base of the petioles.
"The caterpillar is full fed in June, and then lies flat on the dock-leaf, rarely moving from place to place, and, when it does so, gliding with a slug-like motion, the legs and claspers being entirely concealed. The head is extremely small, and can be completely withdrawn into the second segment: the body has the dorsal surface convex, the ventral surface flat; the divisions of the segments are distinctly marked, the posterior margin of each slightly overlapping the anterior margin of the next, and the entire caterpillar having very much the appearance of a Chiton; the sides are slightly dilated, the legs and claspers are seated in closely approximate pairs, nearly on a medio-ventral line. The colour is green, scarcely distinguishable from that of the dock-leaf; there is an obscure medio-dorsal stripe, slightly darker than the disk, and in all probability due to the presence of food in the alimentary canal. The chrysalis is obese, blunt at both extremities, attached by minute hooks at the caudal extremities, and also by a belt round the waist." Newman adds, "My acquaintance with the caterpillar and chrysalis was made very many years ago in Mr. Doubleday's garden at Epping, where the very plant of Rumex hydrolapathum, on which the caterpillars fed, is still in existence."
The caterpillar was described by Stephens, in 1828, as somewhat hairy, bright green, with innumerable white dots. The same author states that the chrysalis was "first green, then pale ash-coloured, with a dark dorsal line and two abbreviated white ones on each side, and, lastly, sometimes deep brown."
The figure of the caterpillar on Plate [98] is after Westwood, and that of the chrysalis after Newman ("Grammar of Entomology").
Although he refers to it as "hippothoë," the Large Copper seems to have been known to Lewin (1795), as he states that specimens had been taken in Huntingdonshire. Haworth (1803) mentions its occurrence in the fens of Cambridgeshire, and Stephens, twenty-five years later, wrote:—"This splendid insect appears to be confined to the fenny counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon, with the neighbouring ones of Suffolk and Norfolk, unless the account of its capture in Wales by Hudson be admitted; but this may probably be the following species [hippothoë], which may, moreover, eventually prove synonymous with Ly. dispar. In the first two localities it appears to occur in great profusion, as several hundred specimens have been captured within these last ten years by the London collectors, who have visited Whittlesea and Yaxley Meres, during the month of July, for the sole purpose of obtaining specimens of this insect."
Pl. 100.