WHITE BUTTERFLIES. 183 



every Cabbage Butterfly that comes across them. 

 There is no cruelty in doing so, for no one has any 

 scruple in killing the caterpillar, and it is surely 

 better to kill one Butterfly than fifty or sixty cater- 

 pillars which it produces. 



The reader may remember that, when treating of 

 the Swallow-tail Butterfly, I stated that all insect eggs 

 were not oval. The egg of this insect is an example 

 of a considerable departure from the oval shape. 

 These eggs are deposited in small clusters, varying 

 from two or three to twelve, and they all stand upright 

 on their bases, just like a number of little bottles, 

 being fixed to the leaf by a gummy secretion. The 

 caterpillars are hatched in about a fortnight, and grow 

 very rapidly. When full-fed they ascend some con- 

 venient object, and change into the pupa, which is 

 fixed by its tail, and prevented from falling by a stout 

 silken belt passed loosely round its body. Its colour 

 is grey-white, with a slight dash of blue, diversified by 

 a number of little black spots. The point of the head 

 is yellow, and so is a line along the ridge of the back. 



There are two broods of this destructive insect, 

 the first in May and the second in August, so that, if 

 its numbers were not kept down by the ichneumon 

 flies, we should scarcely have a cabbage in England. 



THERE are several other Butterflies which go by 

 the popular name of Whites. 



There is, for example, the SMALL WHITE (Pieris 

 rapa\ a very variable Butterfly, in which the male is 

 nearly white, except a clouding at the tips of the 

 upper wings, and a rather indistinct dark spot on the 



