LARGE GARDEN WHITE. 81 



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 Rev. 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. 



In 1842, a vast flight of white butterflies canie over 

 from the Continent to the coast about Dover, and spread- 

 ing inland from thence, did an immense amount of 

 damage to the cabbage gardens ; but so effectually did 

 the ichneumon flies do their work, that an exceedingly 

 small proportion of the caterpillars, resulting from this 

 flock of immigrants, went into the chrysalis state, 

 nearly all perishing just before the period of change. 



Those small, silky, oval objects, of yellowish colour, 



G 



