60 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



caterpillar cabbages, cresses, and their tribe are uni- 

 versally met with. ; but then we find there are other 

 insects whose food plant is equally plentiful and wide- 

 spread, and yet they are nevertheless very rare or local. 



This is pre-eminently the domestic butterfly, abound- 

 ing in suburban gardens, and at times penetrating into 

 the smoky heart of London, and then even the young 

 " St. Giles's bird," whose eyes were never gladdened by 

 green fields, gets up a butterfly hunt, and, cap (or rag) 

 in hand, feels for the nonce all the enthusiasm of the 

 chase in pursuit of the white-winged wanderer, who 

 looks sadly lost and out of place in the flowerless, 

 brick-and-mortar wilderness. 



This and the next species are the only British butter- 

 flies who can be charged with committing any appre- 

 ciable amount of damage to human food and property. 

 In the winged state, indeed, it is utterly harmless (like 

 all other butterflies) ; but not so the hungry caterpillar 

 progeny, as the gardener knows too well when he looks 

 at his choice cabbage rows all gnawed away into 

 skeletons. 



In some seasons and places they multiply so inordi- 

 nately and prodigiously as to deserve the title of a 

 plague of caterpillars, and several remarkable instances 

 of this phenomenon are on record. 



A note in the Zoologist, p. 4547, by the Eev. Arthur 

 Hussey, gives us the following: "For the last two 

 summers many of the gardens of this village have been 

 infested by caterpillars to such an extent that the cab- 

 bages have been utterly destroyed." When the time 

 for changing to the chrysalis state arrived, the surround- 

 ing buildings presented a curious appearance, being 

 marked with long lines of the creatures travelling up 

 the walls in search of a suitable place of shelter for 

 undergoing their transformation. A great number of 

 the caterpillars took refuge in a malt-house, from which 

 they could not escape as butterflies, the result being 

 that for several weeks the maltster swept up daily many 

 hundreds of the dead insects. 



