Volume 10, Plate XXXIII / Entomology (Insects)

Clifden Blue & Silver-Studded Blue Butterflies

Polyommatus Adonis & P. Argus

1. & 2. Clifden Blue Butterfly. Spanning fourteen or fifteen lines, the male is of the purest and most beautiful azure changing to lilac, all the wings edged with a black line and a brown-spotted white fringe, the female brown glossed with blue. Beneath it is brownish-grey, greenish-blue at the base, marked nearly as the chalk-hill blue; it frequents chalky districts in southern England, partial to the Brighton downs.
3. Silver-Studded Blue Butterfly. The male is deep blue inclining to lilac, with a broad black hind border and dark nervures, the costa and fringe white. Beneath it is bluish-grey set with eyes and, on the hind margin, an orange band holding six bright silvery-blue studs; its dull green caterpillar feeds on broom and trefoil, and the fly is common in southern England, reaching York.