In Hieronymus Bosch's best known work, The Garden of Earthly Delights, painted at the start of the 16th century, there are two little devils with the wings of the small tortoiseshell and the meadow brown.
Until last summer, the only record of a scarce tortoiseshell in Britain was a single female seen near Sevenoaks in 1953.
The scarce tortoiseshell (Nymphalis xanthomelas) was spotted in unprecedented numbers in Kent, Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Norfolk last summer, after flying through Holland on a long migration from eastern Europe.
The butterfly is very similar in appearance to the small tortoiseshells commonly found in gardens across Britain but the scarce tortoiseshell tends to be larger, with yellow legs and a yellow patch on its upper forewing instead of white.
The most exciting migrant is one which arrived last summer: the yellow-legged tortoiseshell.
Carly and Daniel Welsh Carly (31) and Daniel (33) share a three-bed Victorian terrace in South Manchester with their tortoiseshell cat Cat Power.
"[Funding through alternative means] seems to be turning out better for me than the official rock'n'roll company albums I struggle through," he sighed, leaning on the lectern, wearing tortoiseshell glasses and a plunge-necked black top.
Related: Big Butterfly Count kicks off with high hopes for spotting scarce tortoiseshell If fine spring weather helps females and males to find each other to mate, the butterfly, also known as the yellow-legged tortoiseshell because of its distinctive straw-coloured legs, will breed in Britain for the first time.
Between sorties she would fluff her hair, pressed flat by her leather flying helmet, in her tortoiseshell mirror (as at the centre of the picture above).
In 1889 a French chemist called Jean-Jacques Trillat discovered that if casein is treated with formaldehyde the result is a hard, shiny substance that does well as a substitute for materials like ivory and tortoiseshell.
THEY have been made of tortoiseshell and horn.
