S-1141001_COMPLETO.pdf

The caterpillar is to be found in July.
RED ADMIRAL. 65
It feeds on the common nettle, giving a preference to the
seeds.
Ihe wings of this insect expand to the width of from two
and a half to three inches. The ground colour of the fore
wings is intense velvet blue black on the outside half, and
intense copper brown black on the inner. A bar of lovely red
runs nearly across them, not quite reaching to their lower
corner; towards which it is slightly curved. It is irregular on
its margins, formed, as it were, of a series of rounded oblong
patches. Between this bar and the tip of the wings is a sim­
ilar short bar of pure white, formed of three patches; and a
fourth lies like an island beyond it, interrupted by the ground
colour of the wings. This latter one forms the largest of a
chain of white spots, which sweep by it, one inside, and three
outside, of which latter two are very small dots, and the third
at the top is a narrow oblong curve. Beyond these, and
between them and the tip of the wing, is an obscure wave of
purple blue. The margin of the wings is white, indented
crescent-wise on the ground colour.
The hind wings are deep velvet brown black, with a broad
margin to all their middle part of fine red, in which are four
black dots. At the lower inside corner of the wings are two
small conjoined oblong marks of purple blue. The margin of
the wings is white, indented in curves into the red bar, and
shaded with blackish brown, forming a sort of dots between
each segment.
Underneath, the fore wings are mottled brown at the tip,
and there are near it two small white dots, surrounded by
two rings of brown. The red bar and the white spots shew
through from above, and between them, near the fore edge,
are two small waved transverse stripes of metallic blue. The
upper inner corner of the red bar is intersected by a bar of
brownish black, and bounded by another, within which again
is another cross mark of metallic blue. The fringe of the
win^-s is white, indented as on the upper side. The hind
wings are most beautifully marbled, mottled, and variegated all