The Glanville Fritillary (Melitæa Cinxia)
This butterfly is bright brownish-orange with black markings, as shown on Plate 71. The under side of the hind wings and the tips of the fore wings are very pale yellowish; the former with two black-margined brownish-orange bands, and lines of black dots; the tip of the fore wing is also dotted and marked with black. The female is slightly paler, and the markings are often blurred.
There is variation in the black markings on the upper side. Sometimes these are enlarged, but more often they are much reduced, and the central one may be completely absent from all the wings. Connected with the suppression of the middle black line above there is usually aberration on the under side of the hind wings also, where the central area is clear of black dots, and the basal area is fulvous, edged and marked with black. Two very remarkable aberrations are represented on Plate 65, Figs. 7, 8.
The eggs, which are yellowish-white, and sometimes tinged with green, are laid in a cluster on the under side of the tip of a leaf of the narrow-leafed plantain (Plantago lanceolata). The caterpillars hatch in July and August, and hibernate in companies under a web. The mature caterpillar is black with white dots, and black bristles arising from greenish warts. The red head, which is notched on the crown, and the red fore legs distinguish this at once from the caterpillars of the Heath, or the Marsh Fritillary. It feeds in early spring on plantain, but seems to prefer Plantago maritima to P. lanceolata when both are present.
The chrysalis is brownish in colour, and is ornamented with orange on the thorax, and with orange points and black marks on the body. It may be found in April and early May suspended from the lower parts of the stems of the plantain or other plants around. Newman states that he found “dozens of the chrysalids in company,” but I have only occasionally met with them, and always singly.
Quite early in the eighteenth century this butterfly had only been observed in England in Lincolnshire, where, according to Ray, it was common, and in a wood at Dulwich. Petiver, who mentioned the last-named locality, calls it the “Dullidge Fritillary.” Wilkes in 1773 wrote of it as the “Plantain Fritillary,” although he gives clover and grass, as well as plantain, as the food of the caterpillar. Moses Harris in the Aurelian (1779) calls the butterfly the “Glanville Fritillary,” and states that it was named after Lady Glanville, who was interested in butterflies, and whose will was disputed on that ground. This fact will serve to show that entomology as a pursuit was not much in vogue at that time, and that those who collected butterflies, etc., were apt to be regarded by their friends as being—well, just a “wee bit daft.”
Both Wilkes and Harris, it may be remarked, seem to have been acquainted with the caterpillar of this species as well as with that of the Marsh Fritillary, and there seems little reason, therefore, to suspect that they confused the two species. The localities given by the earlier authors appear, however, to suggest that the butterfly they wrote about may have been the Marsh Fritillary; but there is no direct evidence of this.
Stephens in 1827 (“Illustrations of British Entomology,” Haustellata, vol. i. p. 34) wrote—
“This is a very local species, and is found in meadows by the sides of woods; in Wilkes’ time it was not uncommon in Tottenham wood; recently the places where it has been chiefly observed have been near Ryde and the Sandrock Hotel, Isle of Wight; in the latter place in plenty: also at Birchwood, and near Dartford and Dover, and in a wood near Bedford. I believe that it has been found in Yorkshire.”
There is no doubt that between 1858 and 1863 the butterfly was more or less common on parts of the Kentish coast between Folkestone and Sandgate, but it seems to be equally certain that the species has long been absent from that part of England as well as from other localities that have been mentioned, except the Isle of Wight, where it is still to be found. It flies in May and June, and seems to have a preference for the rougher parts of the undercliff; but I have seen butterflies and caterpillars too on the higher slopes of St. Boniface. Whenever the caterpillars are met with, it will be well to remember that only the full-grown ones should be taken, as the smaller ones do not thrive very well in confinement. A little self-denial in this matter will bring its own reward in the shape of fine specimens for the cabinet, and the pleasant reflection that the useless sacrifice of a number of caterpillars has been avoided.
The butterfly is widely spread and generally common on the Continent, and in the Channel Islands it is plentiful in Alderney and Guernsey. Its range extends into Asia Minor, Central Asia, and Siberia.