Speckled Wood

It’s late in the year but a little sunshine has brought out the butterflies. There’s a wonderful Speckled Wood butterfly, Pararge aegeria, camouflaged against the autumn leaves in a country park in Devon:

It’s in my A Butterfly Book for the Pocket by Edmund Sanders. It was published in 1939:

It says the males have more pointed wings. This one looks like a male.

It’s also in The Papilios of Great Britain from 1795 where it appears with a stunning illustration:

And here is it first named by Carl Linnæus in his 1760 book Systema Naturae:

Glorious.

We need future generations to have the same excitement as I have about seeing them if we are to safeguard their future.