S-1141001_COMPLETO.pdf

34 MARBLED WHITE.
There is hardly a more strikingly beautiful species of Butterfly
in our country than the Marbled White; the contrast of its
black and white markings is exceedingly pleasing.
It is a very locally, though widely-distributed insect, in our
country; in Scotland, however, it is not known.
I have taken this insect in plenty at Pinhay cliff, Devonshire,
near Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire, also at Marr, near Doncaster,
and on Buttercrambe moor, near Stamford-Bridge, Yorkshire.
It is taken in abundance in Hartley wood, near St. Osyth,
Essex, and occurs also at Manningtree, in the same county;
near Great Bedwyn and Sarum, Wiltshire, in isolated spots
near woods, as J. W Lukis, Esq. informs me.
The perfect insect appears in June and July.
The caterpillar feeds on the cat's-tail grass.
The Marbled White varies in the expanse of its wings from
two inches to nearly two and a quarter. Its colours are a
fine yellowish white and black, with which the whole surface
of the wings is chequered over, so that one can hardly say
whether the white or the black is the ground-colour. There
is a large whitish oval spot near the base of each wing, suc­
ceeded °by four long whitish patches, the two middle ones
being nearest to the outside of the wings, and smaller than
the others. Between these and the tip are two smaller white
spots, and there is a row of white spots near the margin,
divided by a black line, which is again succeeded by the white,
forming a margin, interrupted by the continuation of the black
which had formed the sides of the white spots before their
intersection by the black line. The hind wings have a large
oval whitish spot near the base, then an irregular black mark,
succeeded by a very broad bar of the former colour, then
black again, and then a row of white crescents, varying in size,
near the outside margin, divided by a black line, as in the
fore wings.
Underneath the markings correspond, but the black colour
is much more faint and indistinct. The fore wings have a
small black eye, with a white centre, near the tip. The hind
wings have five eyes just above the white crescents near the