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The third walked over the thistle, tentatively, flattened his wings to show his sash and shoulder-straps. "Good morning, good luck! You're still my Sign!" said Peter. The Red Admiral fluttered his wings again, as if he quite understood. He allowed Peter to admire his under wings, the fore-wings so exquisitely jeweled and enameled, the lower like a miniature design for an oriental prayer-rug.
Underneath, the wings were exquisitely marked, flushed, and shaded almost past description in delicate and nearly intangible reddish browns, rose madder on grey, pink-tinged brown and clay colour. On the fore-wings the field from base to first line was reddish brown with a faint tinge of tan beside the costa. From this to the clay-coloured border my descriptive powers fail.
Again, the females of Colias edusa and hyale have "orange or yellow spots on the black marginal border, represented in the males only by thin streaks"; and in Pieris it is the females which "are ornamented with black spots on the fore-wings, and these are only partially present in the males."
The former is green on the upper side with yellow spots on the hind-wing, and the long tails are tipped with yellow. The two bird-butterflies are common in the low valleys from May to October. They are truly magnificent insects, measuring from 6 to 8 inches across. Their fore-wings are wholly of a velvety black and the hind-wing golden yellow scolloped with black.
It is observed, however, that the natural heat-forms of the same genera and species, namely, the summer-forms and those which live in the warm southern climate, exhibit, for instance, in the case of butterflies akin to the sailor, the same features, the elongation and more marked curvature of the fore-rim of the fore-wings and the consequent more extended form, that are produced by the action of artificial heat.
Bates shewed me a whole series of specimens of Papilio sesostris and P. childrenae; in the latter the males varied much in the extent of the beautifully enamelled green patch on the fore-wings, and in the size of the white mark, and of the splendid crimson stripe on the hind-wings; so that there was a great contrast amongst the males between the most and the least gaudy.
They are a dull green, while Celeus is shining, and during the succession of moults, they show slight variations in colour. They pupate in a hole in the ground. The moths on close examination show quite a difference from Celeus. They are darker in colour. The fore-wings lack the effect of being laid off in lines.
It measures about 8 inches across the fore-wings, and nearly as much from shoulder to the tip of the tail. Other insects numerously represented in Sikkim are beetles, bugs, grasshoppers, praying insects, walking-stick insects, dragon-flies, ants, lantern-flies, cicadae, etc. Plant life and insect life are abundant enough, but of birds there seem to be comparatively few.
The male of Papilio sesostris is much less beautiful than of P. childrenae; and it likewise varies a little in the size of the green patch on the fore-wings, and in the occasional appearance of the small crimson stripe on the hind-wings, borrowed, as it would seem, from its own female; for the females of this and of many other species in the Aeneas group possess this crimson stripe.
The back wings were darker than the darkest part of the fore-wings and this colour covered them to the margin, lightening very slightly. A clay- coloured band bordered the edge, touched with irregular splashes of dark brown, a little below them a slightly heavier line than that on the fore-wing, which seemed to follow the outline of the decorations.
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