The Marsh Ringlet (Cænonympha Typhon)
The upper surface of this butterfly is shown in the first figure of [Plate VI], and the under side in the accompanying woodcut; but it must be remembered that the species is a very variable one, so much so that it is almost impossible to give anything like a short and, at the same time, a satisfactory description. The female may usually be distinguished by a pale patch across the middle of the fore wings; and the eye spots of the same wings, always more or less indistinct when present, are sometimes entirely wanting. The markings of the under side are even more variable, the transverse bars and the eye spots being often particularly conspicuous, and at other times hardly discernible.
This is generally spoken of as a northerner, its chief localities being in the mountainous parts of Scotland and the elevated districts of the north of England, but in Ireland it extends to the southern ranges. Its haunts are elevated moors and marshy heaths, where its food plant—the beak-rush (Rhyncospora alba)—abounds, and it is on the wing from the end of June to August or September.
The caterpillar is green, with five longitudinal stripes—one dark one, bordered with yellow, down the middle of the back, and two pale yellow ones on each side. It is a hybernator, and is full grown about the end of May, when it suspends itself by the hindmost claspers to a silken carpet, and changes to a green chrysalis with pale brown wing cases.
The Small Heath (Cænonympha Pamphilus)
The last member of the family Satyridæ is the well-known Small Heath, that may be seen almost all over the British Isles on heaths, meadows and moors, from May to September.
The upper surface of this butterfly ([Plate VI], fig. 2) is a tawny yellow, with a dark brown border, and a spot of the same dark tint
near the tip of each fore wing. The under side is much like that of the last species, but there are no eye spots on the hind wings.