THE MEADOW BROWN BUTTERFLY. (Hipparchia Janira.)
([Plate VI]. fig. 1, Male; 1a, Female.)
Perhaps of all our butterflies this is the least attractive, being too common to excite interest from its rarity or difficulty of attainment, as other dingy butterflies do, and too plain and homely to win regard, in spite of its commonness, as the beautiful "Small Tortoise-shell" and the Common Blues do.
This is the sober brown insect that keeps up a constant fluttering, in sunshine and gloom, over the dry pasture land and barren hill-side; and perhaps it ought to find favour in our eyes, from this very fact of keeping up a cheerful spirit under circumstances the most unfavourable to butterfly enjoyment in general.
The colouring of the male, on the upper side, may be described as a sooty brown, rather lighter about the eye-spot on the front wing.
The female is a little smarter in her attire, having an orange-tawny patch on the front wing.
Beneath, both sexes are nearly alike; the general colour of the front wing being fulvous, or orange-brown, with a cool-brown margin. The hind wings are marked with tints of a duller brown, varying much in distinctness in different specimens.
The caterpillar is green, with a white stripe on each side. Feeds on grasses.