Injurious Insects. 145 



be thoroughly coated with Paris green, and not even receive 

 the first gripe of stomach-ache. 



Imported cabbage butterfly {Pieris rapae). This beauti- 

 ful butterfly that has so recently invaded our fair country, 

 needs no introduction to any of you. How well it illustrates 

 the truth discovered by the great Charles Darwin, and to 

 which I have already referred, that the newly imported 

 species do most mischief and are most to be dreaded. " It 

 is the new broom that sweeps clean " would be paraphrased 

 thus: It is the new insect that makes a clean sweep. As 

 you all know, the fine white butterflies, with their neat 

 black buttons come sailing leisurely into the cabbage garden 

 early in thvi year when the plants are just well started, and 

 again in midsummer when the heads are nicely formed. 

 And how well protected are the green eggs which are scat- 

 tered about the cabbage leaves. Their green hues are so 

 like that of the cabbage, that it requires a bird with very 

 sharp eyes to secure those eggs for breakfast. Soon the 

 green caterpillars the so-called " cabbage worms," come 

 crawling forth from the eggs. Nature has also dressed 

 these caterpillars in a mimicing robe, as in their green dress 

 they escape detection except from the sharpest ken. These 

 fat, slick, larva grow very rapidly, as we should expect 

 from the way the cabbage leaves melt away. The ragged 

 leaves, and the abundant droppings of the larva make it not 

 difficult to find even these insects which owe so much to 

 color protection. The second brood tunnel far into the cab- 

 bage,*and are not infrequently sliced in exquisite manner by 

 the same knife that prepares the krout or slaw for the table. 

 In three or four weeks the little acrobat lies its tail end to 

 some barrel, ledge or to the cabbage, spins another robe 

 which it swings under its shoulders, and then presto, it just 

 gets out of its own trousers in a marvelous way, and we have 

 the queriest, greenish-gray chrysalid. After a few days of 

 quiet in summer or the lapse of the long winter this pupal 

 skin bursts, and the clean handsome butterfly flits forth 

 once more, to repeat the same round of mischief. 



For this insect California Pyrethrum or Buhack is a most 

 efficient and satisfactory cure. This insecticide consists of 

 10-H. 



