The Lesser Double-Eyed Butterfly

A frustrating morning searching in vain for Musk Orchid on the very blustery South Downs. However, all was not lost. On my way down a brief glimpse of orange gave me my first Gatekeeper of the year, sheltering deep in the vegetation. It brings my total for the season to 35 species. 

Back in the late 17th century this would have been the Lesser Double-Eyed butterfly (Petiver, 1699) or, slightly later, the Hedge Eye with Double Specks. Clouded Argus (1795), Large Heath (1803) and Small Meadow Brown (1819) have also been suggested. Gatekeeper and Orange Field Butterfly were both proposed by Moses Harris in 1766. However, in 1913 Newman and Leeds called it the Hedge Brown, an alternative to Gatekeeper which still lives on (Butterfly Conservation and the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme use both names). In France it has the rather nice name of L'Amaryllis.