Pl. 125.
Small Skipper. 1, 3 male; 2, 4 female.
Essex Skipper. 5, 7 male; 6, 8 female.
Lulworth Skipper. 9, 11 male; 10, 12 female.
The Essex Skipper (Adopæa lineola).
This butterfly is very like the Small Skipper, but may be separated from it, in both sexes, by the black under sides of the knobs of the antennæ. The black sexual mark in the male is finer, shorter, and much less oblique (Plate [125]).
The egg (Plate [124]) is pale greenish-yellow, oval in shape, flattened above and below; the top is slightly depressed. The eggs are deposited in July or August, in dried grass seed-heads and inside the sheath of a leaf, and the caterpillars, according to Hawes, do not hatch until April.
The caterpillar is green, with the incisions between the rings yellowish; there is a darker green stripe on the back, and the lines on the sides are yellow. The head is pale brown and striped with darker brown. It feeds from April to June on coarse grasses, such as Triticum repens. When full grown "it spins together the stems of the grass low down, with a network of white silk for pupation" (Hawes). The chrysalis is described as being long, yellowish-green in colour, and retaining the dark dorsal stripe seen in the caterpillar.