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suit of the white-winged wanderer, who, no doubt, looks 

 sadly out of place in the great flowerless brick-and-mortar 

 wilderness. This and the preceding species are the only 

 British butterflies that can be charged with committing any 

 damage to human food. In the imago or winged state they 

 are utterly harmless ; but not so the hungry caterpillar 

 progeny, as every gardener knows when he looks at the long 

 rows of cabbage, brocoli, or cauliflower gnawed into skeletons. 

 Some seasons the larvce of these two butterflies are so nu- 

 merous that few vegetable gardens escape their frightful 

 ravages. The larvce of Pieris rapce are much more destruc- 

 tive to the cabbages than his big brother Pieris hrassicce, 

 who appears perfectly content to be allowed to feed on the 

 outside leaves ; while rapce bores into the very heart of the 

 cabbage, and feeds with luxurious delight on the most tender 

 parts. There is a common saying that impertinence meets 

 with his reward, which, I am afraid, is often the case with 

 poor rapce, who frequently gets boiled with the cabbage, 

 beat up with butter and pepper, eaten at table by both rich 

 and poor. Caterpillars, like other creatures, have their 

 troubles and their trials ; they have their molting and their 

 repeated skin shiftings ; they have the birds and the Ichneu- 

 mon flies as the most deadly enemies to the whole larvce 

 race. The Ichneumon flies are the worst of all ; they are 

 ever on the wing in search of defenceless caterpillars, and 

 when she has selected her victim, she pierces the body of the 

 caterpillar with a sharp cutting instrument, which the female 

 only is provided with, and in the wound deposits an egg. 

 The caterpillar tmsts about a good deal while this sort of 

 treatment is going on, and to all appearance seems none the 

 worse for it ; meanwhile the enemy repeats her thrusts until 

 some twenty or thirty eggs are thus deposited in the body 

 of the caterpillar, and then his doom is certain beyond hope. 

 The eggs quickly hatch into grubs, and then begin to feed on 

 the fat of the caterpillar, till they reduce him to a living 

 mummy ; but, strange to say, by some profound instinct 

 they keep clear of all the vital organs, as if they knew that 



