The Life of the Caterpillar 



When this is over, the hunger-fit starts that 

 will make a ruin of the cabbage within a few 

 weeks. 



What an appetite ! What a stomach, work- 

 ing continuously day and night! It is a 

 devouring laboratory, through which the 

 foodstuffs merely pass, transformed at once. 

 I serve up to my caged herd a bunch of 

 leaves picked from among the biggest: two 

 hours later, nothing remains but the thick 

 midribs; and even these are attacked when 

 there is any delay in renewing the victuals. 

 At this rate, a "hundredweight-cabbage," 

 doled out leaf by leaf, would not last my 

 menagerie a week. 



The gluttonous animal, therefore, when it 

 swarms and multiplies, is a scourge. How 

 are we to protect our gardens against it? In 

 the days of Pliny, the great Latin naturalist, 

 a stake was set up in the middle of the cab- 

 bage-bed to be preserved; and on this stake 

 was fixed a Horse's skull bleached in the sun : 

 a Mare's skull was considered even better. 

 This sort of bogey was supposed to ward off 

 the devouring brood. 



My confidence in this preservative is but an 

 indifferent one; my reason for mentioning it 

 346 



