[53] 



example. In our precious cabbage-patches 

 the holometabolous insecta are the hosts 

 of parasitic poly embryonic hymenoptera, 

 upon the prevalence of which rests the psy- 

 chic and somatic stamina of our fellow 

 countrymen ; for the larvae oiPieris brassicx, 

 vulgarly cabbage butterfly, are parasitiased 

 by the Apantales glomeratus, which in turn 

 has a hyperparasite, the Mesochorus palli- 

 dus. It is tragic to think that the fate of a 

 plant, the dietetic and pharmaceutical vir- 

 tues of which have been so extolled by Cato, 

 and upon which two of my Plinean col- 

 leagues of uncertain date, Chrysippus and 

 Dieuches, wrote monographs — it fills one 

 with terror to think that a crop so dear to 

 Hodge (etveriscymata! the Brussels sprouts 

 of Columella) should depend on the deposi- 

 tion in the ovum of the Pieris of anoth- 

 er polyembryonic egg. The cytoplasm or 

 ooplasm of this forms a trophoamnion and 

 develops into a poly germinal mass, a spheri- 



