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Pl. 47.
Red Admiral.
1, 2 male; 3, 4 female.
A North American species, Pyrameis virginiensis (huntera), has been once or twice, since 1828, reported as captured in England, but its occurrence in this country can only be regarded as accidental.
The Red Admiral (Pyrameis atalanta).
The vivid contrast of black and scarlet in this butterfly will certainly arrest the attention of even the least observant. But Nature, ever excellent in her colour schemes, has toned down the glare of the scarlet bands by the addition of some splashes and dots of white above them on the fore wings, and some dots of black on those of the hind wings. Then, by way of a finish, there is a delicate tracing of blue along the outer margin of the fore wings, and a touch of the same colour at the angle of the hind wings, the scalloped margins of all the wings being white relieved by black points. On the under side the combination of colour on the fore wings is much the same as above, but there is also some blue tracing on the central area, and the tips harmonize with the hind wings, which are mottled with various shades of brown, traversed by wavy black lines, and have a more or less square pale spot on their front edges.
The ordinary variation in this butterfly consists of slight differences in the tone of the red markings, which ranges from the normal scarlet in one direction to almost crimson, and in the other to orange-yellow. The bands on the fore wings may be broken up into two, or sometimes three, distinct parts; and a specimen with the bands of hind wings marked with yellow has been noted. There is often a white dot in the bands of the fore wings, and this occurs in both sexes.
A somewhat rare variety is represented on Plate [49.] It was reared from one of three caterpillars casually picked up at Erith, and is now in Mr. Sabine's collection. Somewhat similar specimens have been figured elsewhere. One of these was bred from a caterpillar found at Ashton in 1867, and another was captured in Jersey in 1893. All these varieties seem to be modifications of the form named klemensiewiczi by Schille, and which was figured by Esper as a variety of atalanta in 1777. This form has also resulted from temperature experiments on the chrysalis, of the kind previously adverted to.