A LIVING MARTYRDOM. 29 



very pleasant thing to look upon or think of the way in 

 which she often goes to work upon a poor devoted devourer 

 of the leaves of cabbage, one of the commonest of all caterpil- 

 lars, whence spring one of the commonest of all butterflies 

 the Large White* of the garden. 



While stuffing its variegated doublet of green, black, and 

 yellow, with vegetable pulp, a small ichneumon, a little four- 

 winged imp, with black body and yellow legs, pounces on its 

 back, nourishes her tremendous egg-inserting weapon, and, 

 seeking therewith' the caterpillar's most vulnerable part, 

 plunges it, now here, now there, between its rings, leaving, 

 with every puncture, a " thorn in the flesh," soon to be the 

 living prey of a brood of devourers. 



The victim of this infliction bears all with a most astonishing 

 degree of quietude ; and, without any outward signs of the 

 visitation which has befallen it, continues to discuss its cab- 

 bage with apparently the same relish as before, and utterly 

 unconscious that, while seeming to feed only itself, it is in real- 

 ity supporting the surreptitious progeny which Mother Ich- 

 neumon has so cunningly committed to its involuntary keeping. 



Thus strangely supported, the infant or grub cuckoo-flies 

 attain their growth, and so, to all appearance, does their 

 unfortunate fosterer, the caterpillar. According to instinctive 

 custom, the latter, then deserting its cabbage, betakes itself, 

 perhaps in July or August, to the sheltering coping of a 

 garden wall, or cross-bar of a paling; places where, in the 



* Pontia Brassicce. 



