No. 510, whereas sanio, the male, is No. 506. We must, therefore, in accordance with the law of priority, adopt the earliest name for the species, however much we regret having to discard the old familiar name of russula.
Although the central spot of the fore wings is subject to minor modification in size, shape, and colour, it is in the hind wings that variation chiefly occurs. In the male the blackish grey band on the outer area of the hind wing may be broad and complete, or it may be broken up by the veins into a series of bars; then, again, the bars tend to become smaller and smaller until only tiny portions remain. Usually, the basal third of the hind wings is more or less greyish, but sometimes the whole surface almost, or quite up to the outer band, is clouded with dark grey. The black markings of the female hind wings are apt to vary in a very similar way.
The caterpillar is reddish brown, covered with brown hairs; a yellow-marked whitish stripe along the back, and two darkish stripes on the sides; a white spot below each black margined spiracle. It hatches from the egg in July, and as a rule hibernates when still small, completing growth in April and May. It feeds on the leaves of many low plants, among which are dandelion, dock, chickweed, and plantain. The chrysalis is brown, streaked with greyish, and is enclosed in a flimsy cocoon among herbage, generally on the ground.
The moth, which inhabits heaths and mosses, is on the wing in June and early July; the male may be put up on sunny days, but the female is not often seen until early evening. After dark both sexes may be found on the heather.
It should be noted here that there are usually two broods of this species abroad, and that in confinement it will develop a more or less complete second brood in September with us. An instance is recorded of sixty-three out of sixty-six caterpillars from eggs laid in early July, feeding up and producing moths in the last week of September. The caterpillar is not an easy one
to deal with during hibernation, so that it would always be to the advantage of the rearer to get it through to the perfect state the same year, whenever possible.
The species is widely distributed over the south and east of England, and South Wales. It occurs in Cheshire in all suitable places; in Lancashire it is common on the moorlands, as at Witherslack and Methop, and it is not uncommon near Quernmore, Clougha, and other places, in July. Local and somewhat scarce as a rule in Yorkshire, but recorded as not uncommon in the Scarborough district. In Scotland it is found in Roxburghshire, and northwards to Aberdeen; and, according to Kane, it is widely spread, although local, in Ireland.
The Garden Tiger (Arctia caia).
How frequently the collector has had introduced to his notice, by some non-entomological friend, or worthy cottage dame, a "fine butterfly," only to find that the supposed prize, usually imprisoned under an inverted tumbler, was just an ordinary specimen of the gaudy, but common, Garden Tiger. Few persons living in the country, and at all interested in the natural objects around them, will fail to recognize the portraits on Plate [82]; other figures, however, on Plate [84] will appear strange, and yet they only portray some of the many forms which the moths assume. Possibly it would be true to say that no two specimens could be found that were exactly identical in tint and marking. Even the markings of any one example are frequently not precisely alike on corresponding wings. Normally the fore wings are white or creamy-white with dark brown markings, and the hind wings are red with deep blue centred black spots, often ringed with yellow. The dark markings of the fore wings are most inconstant in size and in form; in some cases they are so greatly enlarged that these wings might be described as dark brown with narrow, irregular whitish markings (Plate [84], Fig. 1). On the other hand, but less frequently perhaps, the dark markings are narrowed, shortened, and reduced in number, until only spots remain on a white or creamy ground (Plate [84], Fig. 2). The red colour of the hind wings is sometimes crimson in tone, or it assumes an orange tint, and less often it gives place to yellow; the central spots often unite and form a band, or some, occasionally all, disappear; the marginal spots sometimes run into a band.