RAVAGES OF CATERPILLARS. 213 



keep them in due bounds, the caterpillars of this 

 moth alone, leaving- out of consideration the 2000 

 other British species, would soon destroy more than 

 half of our vegetation. 



The caterpillar just mentioned, amongst other pot- 

 herbs, attacks coleworts and cabbage ; and may 

 sometimes be found there along with another, not 

 uncommon, but seldom very destructive, called by col- 

 lectors the burnished brass (Pliisia chrijsitis), which 

 differs little from the caterpillar of the y moth, except 

 in being of a brighter green. Another, called the old 

 g-entlewoman {Mamestra hrassicfE, Treitsche), is so 

 destructive to cabbages in Germany, that the gar- 

 deners g-ather whole baskets full and bury them ; 

 but as Rosel remarks, they might as well endeavour 

 to kill a crab by covering it with sea-water, for it is 

 natural to them to burrow under ground when they 

 change into chrysalides*. We have seen this cater- 

 pillar, as well as that of the brown-eye {Mamestra 

 oleracea), do considerable damage in Wiltshire, but 

 nothing to what is reported of it in Germany. 



The leaves of cabbages, cauliflower, brocoli, cole- 

 I worts, and turnips, are frequently devoured to a 

 more considerable extent by the sub-gregarious cater- 

 pillars of the white butterflies (Poiitia brassicce, P. 

 napi, &c.) From the great multiplicity of the but- 

 terflies, indeed, and from there being two broods 

 in the year, we have reason to wonder that their 

 ravages are not more extensive. But we have re- 

 marked that they seem more partial to wild than 

 cultivated plants ; for we have seen, near Islington, 

 the oleraceous weeds, such as rape (Braasica napus)^ 

 over-run with them in the very same fields with cul- 

 tivated cabbages, which were not touched f; so that 

 the caterpillars are not always so injurious as we 

 might at first suppose, since in this case they tend to 

 Rose), Inseckten, i. iv. 170, t J. R. 



