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76 DESTROYING INSECTS. 
As it is the larve only of insects, with very few exceptions, that 
do injury to vegetation, many persons never think of destroying 
them in any other state; forgetting that every butterfly that we see 
fluttering about may lay thousands of eggs, and that if we wait till 
these eggs have become caterpillars, irreparable mischief will be 
done to our plants before they can possibly be destroyed. When- 
ever a butterfly is seen quietly sitting on the branch of a tree, in the 
day-time, it will generally be found to be a female, that either just has 
laid, or, what is more probable, is just about to lay her eggs. As 
soon as the eggs are laid, the butterfly generally dies; and where 
dead butterflies are found, search should always be made for their eggs. 
In summer, a little oblong chrysalis, the colour of which is yellow, with 
black bands, will frequently be found hanging from the gooseberry- 
bushes ; and whenever it is seen it should be destroyed. This chrysalis 
is the pupa of the magpie moth, the caterpillar of which frequent- 
ly strips the gooseberry-bushes of all their leaves in spring, and thus 
renders their fruit worthless in summer. The lackey caterpillar is 
another very destructive insect. These creatures, which are curious- 
ly striped, like the tags on a footman’s shoulder, (whence their 
name,) assemble together in great numbers, and covering themselves 
with a web, completely devour the epidermis and parenchyma of the 
leaf on which they have fixed themselves; they then draw another 
leaf to them, which they also devour, and then another, till the 
greater part of the leaves of the tree they have attacked, present a 
fine lace-like appearance, as though they had been macerated. Did 
all these insects live to become moths, they would completely de- 
stroy not only our gardens, but our forests, as they feed on almost 
every different kind of tree; but with that beautiful arrangement by 
which all the works of our Great Creator are balanced equally with 
each other, and none allowed to predominate, these insects are such 
favourite food for birds, that not a hundredth part of them are suf- 
fered toreach maturity. The eggs of the lackey moth are often 
found fixed on a naked twig, in winter, looking like a bracelet of 
hard beads, and adhering so firmly together, that the whole bracelet 
may be slipped off entire. 
The cabbage butterflies are also very destructive in the larva 
state. The caterpillars are soft, of a*pale whitish green, and very 
active, leaping about in the hand when taken; and the chrysalis, 
which is also green, looks as if it were swalltel up like a mummy, 
