ings are deep brown, marked with {100} broad patches of paler
colour, sometimes making a bright contrast in the female, but much duller
and more uniform in the male.

The female also exceeds her lord considerably in stature, and, in fact, by
her side he looks rather a mean and shabby fellow.

The device on the under side of the hind wings, though composed of the
plainest colours, is very ornamental; grey and brown are the prevailing
hues, disposed in mottled bars and stripes, reminding one of agates, or
some other ornamental stones.

This butterfly is not everywhere to be found, but haunts rocky places and
hill-sides, on a chalky or limestone soil. At St. Boniface's Down, in the
Isle of Wight, I noticed it in such exceeding profusion last August, that I
could quickly have caught thousands, had I been so disposed.

Though a powerful-looking insect, its flight is by no means swift, and it
suffers itself to be captured without difficulty.

The _caterpillar_ is dull pinkish about the back, with three obscure
grey-green stripes, a dark line on the sides, and greenish beneath. It
feeds on grasses, and has been said to undergo its transformation to the
chrysalis in the earth; but this point requires confirmation.

The _butterfly_ is seen from the middle of July till the beginning of
September.

The following are localities for it:--Bembridge and Ventnor (Isle of
Wight), Brighton, Lewes, New Forest, Exeter, Plymouth, Falmouth, Truro,
Bristol, Dorsetshire, Salisbury Plain, Winchester, Worcester, Newmarket,
Gamlingay, Isle of Arran, Arthur's Seat (Edinburgh), Durham, Darlington,
Glasgow, Lake District.

[Illustration: XI.]

{101}

THE MEADOW BROWN BUTTERFLY. (_Hipparchia Janira._)

(Plate VI. fig. 1, Male; 1_a_, 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 b