THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 975 
insignificant creatures is trifling and useless? and whether 
they do not lead us up to a knowledge of our adorable 
Creator? Let us, then, following the steps of those who 
honour God in his works, walk boldly forward to inspect the 
insect-world. Behold, here, the history, or way of life, of an 
insect, in the person of a butterfly of the second order. 
§ 2.—Of the white butterflies, four sorts are known to me, 
namely:—the large butterfly, Pieris Brassice; the small 
butterfly, P. Rapz; the great striped butterfly, (?) P. Dapli- 
dice, which [ have not seen in this country, but Dr. Résel 
has described and drawn it in the first part of his ‘ Insecten- 
Belustigung,’ p. 45, of the second collection; and the small 
striped butterfly, P. Napi, which that author has not in his 
work. The last-named insect shall for the present occupy 
my pen. This butterfly is one of the first to show itself in 
the spring, but not one of the commonest, as it is not found 
nearly so frequently as the large and small butterfly. It lays 
its eggs singly, and leads a lonely life in the caterpillar state. 
During all the time that I have occupied myself with the 
study of insects, it has only once happened that I have been 
able to secure a single egg of this insect. My son found it, 
about the end of May, on the downs, near Haarlem, on 
a leaf of one of the wild kails....... I am strongly of the 
opinion that the insect deposits its eggs on other plants. 
The egg above named was placed on the under side of the 
. 0 Its shape is longish, inclined towards a point 
at the top; by the under or broader side it is gummed on to 
the leaf; and thus, like pretty nearly all butterfly-eggs, it has 
the point always turned away from the leaf....... It has 
twelve ribs, of which six run out nearly at the top, and the 
other six alternately a little lower. Cross over, in the circum- 
ference from the top to the bottom, it is banded with a great 
number of slightly-embossed stripes. It is shiny, and of a 
whitish yellow colour, having thus, when seen through a 
microscope, a beautiful appearance. 
§.3.—A couple of days after I got the egg I observed that — 
its brightness quite disappeared, and that it became dull in 
colour; whereupon, in about the course of one day, the 
caterpillar appeared, and in the first place ate up the top of 
its egg half-way. The little animal was thus of a whitish 
colour, and, through the microscope, appeared all over shiny 
