The lower surfaces of the back wings are yellowish and have only a few black dots; there are characteristic white marks in the immediate vicinity of these.

[1] Lycaena virgaureae lives preferably on flower-rich, dry and damp meadows in Central Europe.

Underside leather-yellow, more sparsely spotted with black, before the outer third of the hind- wing pale dots, which are occasionally united in a white chain.

— estonica Huene (76 b), from the Baltic provinces and eastern Russia, exactly resembles the preceding in size and shape, but has a broader black margin.

(76 b) is in size like virgaureae, but the upperside of the male is as in estonica; beneath the more reddish disc of the forewing contrasts with the more yellow hindwing and the white discal stripe of the latter is absent or reduced; from northern Central Asia, Dauria, Mongolia, and as similar aberration in the Swiss Alps.

— males from the Apennines, in which the upperside is deeper red-golden and the base of the hindwing more densely dusted with dark, are apennina Calb.

The females the contrary have the ground-colour paler and are less dusted with dark than many Central European specimens, the underside being hghter.

— Specimens with the underside of the hindwing strongly dusted with grey, the upperside of the female more-over having a brown-grey tint on account of the dark dusting on the golden ground, occur in many alpine districts with the ordinary form, being especially plentiful and well marked in the Alps of Valais; all such individuals are united as ab.

zermattensis which, like phlaeas caeruleopunctata, have a chain of white dots before the outer third of the hindwing, as shown in the figure given in Ann.

Besides the modification of the colour of the upperside into sepia-brown, both sexes differ on the underside in the forewing bearing a broad dark margin and the hindwing being washed with fuscous, ab.

The butterflies are on the wing from the end of June into August on meadows, clearings in woods, mountain-sides and flowery slopes; they are abundant almost everywhere in the area aru:!