LARGE CABBAGE BUTTERFLY. 187 
small birds which prey upon them, and thus lend 
their friendly aid to destroy these rapacious intru- 
ders. They feed, for the most part, on cabbages, 
and some other of our culinary plants, which renders 
them more injurious to the kitchen-garden than any 
other. We have seen a garden with many hundreds 
of cabbages completely devoured by these cater- 
pillars. They are of the number of those known in 
England by the trivial name of grub, and in the 
perfect or winged state they are distinguished by the 
less ambiguous epithet of Large Cabbage Butterfly. 
From the astonishing fecundity of these insects, it 
may be wondered that they do not, in the course of 
time, completely overspread the face of the earth, 
and totally consume every green plant. This would 
certainly be the case, if the Omnipotent had not put 
a check to their progress. There is a genus of little 
insects, called by naturalists the Ichnewmon, which 
always oviposits within the body of other insects, or 
in their larva or pupa. Different species have as- 
signed to them particular insects, and the parent 
Ichneumon will lay her eggs nowhere else; she 
searches for these caterpillars with unremitting 
assiduity, till she is successful. Within these 
caterpillars the eggs are deposited, and are hatched ; 
there they continue during their larva state, prey- 
ing upon the vitals of the animal; they pass to 
the pupa condition, and eventually emerge the 
perfect insects. Some idea may be formed of the 
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