Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Foreign Butterflies.djvu/191

Rh as the projecting angles, two of which are prolonged into tails. Beneath, the anterior portion of all the wings is rust-red, marked with spots and transverse stripes of olive-brown, encircled with white; beyond this there is a white band of a satiny lustre, bordered externally on the upper wings with dusky lunules; the space beyond these lunules is fulvous, traversed by a band of slate-grey, with a series of black spots, inclining to triangular, on the inner side of it. Beyond the white band on the secondary wings there is a row of ferruginous spots, succeeded by an olive-coloured space bearing a row of violet-blue points; the posterior band similar to that on the upper side. Head and thorax rust-brown; abdomen dull brown, with greyish hairs; antennæ black, proboscis shining rust-red.

The female scarcely differs in appearance from the male, except in having the under side of the hinder wings finely sprinkled in the middle with blue points.

"The Jasius butterfly is one of the largest, rarest, and most beautiful of the European diurnal Lepidoptera. It occurs in the southern countries of France, for example, in the neighbourhood of Lyons, the Isles d'Hières, near Toulon and Montpellier; also in Italy, Sicily, Corsica, some parts of Northern Africa, and in Asia Minor. Lefebure de Cerisy of Toulon has payed considerable attention to the metamorphoses of this fine insect. The caterpillar, which in its early stage is green, becomes afterwards of a yellowish hue, and its skin is as it were shagreened and transversely plaited. Its head is