FIELD BOOK OF INSECTS. 



The Checkered White (Plate XXXIV) 

 Pien s is also called the Southern Cabbage Butter- 



fly and used to be called the Common White 

 but, like our other native cabbage-feeders, its numbers 

 are diminishing as those of the foreigner increase. The 

 larvce feed on crucifers and, when they get a chance at 

 cabbage, they merely eat the outside leaves, which are not 

 worth much at any rate. The veins on the under side of 

 the female's wings, especially the hind ones, are tinged 

 with greenish yellow. Those adults which come from 

 overwintered chrysalids (var. vernalis] have so much 

 greenish gray on the hind wings that the white is reduced 

 to narrow triangular spots; spots on the upper side are 

 much reduced, or even absent. 



The larva of the Old-fashioned Cabbage- 

 butterfly now feeds on such crucifers as 

 it can get, but it is said to have been the Cabbage 

 Butterfly. Some call it the Mustard White; some, 

 the Gray- veined White. The Comstocks say "The 

 species is essentially northern, but it spread far south 

 when Pieris rap<z was introduced. In some way the 

 European species has greatly reduced its numbers; it has 

 literally taken to the woods as a result of this invasion 

 and is seldom found elsewhere." It is naturally (not by hu- 

 man intervention) found in Europe and throughout North 

 America as far south as the Gulf States, but it varies greatly 

 with region and season. Plate XXXIV shows the form 

 you are most likely to see. To quote the Comstocks again : 

 ' ' Evidently this species has not concluded whether it will 

 in its final form be all white; or have the front margins 

 and tips of the front wings blackish; or have one spot on 

 each front and hind wing; or have one black blotch along 

 the wings outside the middle; or if it will have the veins 

 of both wings above penciled with gray." 



In the Gulf States there is Pieris monuste, which has a 

 wing expanse of from 1.75 to 2.3 inches; the male is whitish 

 above, except for a narrow brown outer margin to the fore 

 wings ; the female has a broad brown outer margin on the 

 fore wings, as well as a narrow brown outer margin on the 

 hind wings, above. 



136 



