affectbnj the Turnip- Crops. 
103 
In tho summer and early autumn months, when the cauliflowers 
and cabbages have a well -formed heart, these ravenous caterpillars 
not only consume a c^reat portion of the plant, but render it alto- 
fjetlicr unlit for culinary purposes by the disgusting deposit which 
falls from them, tainting every leaf; and it is scarcely possible to 
detect them, unless the vegetable be cut through and even into 
quarters, as they eat their way into the most solid parts. Tiiis 
insect is abundant in all the countries of Europe where cabbages, 
lettuces, &c. are cultivated ; and M. Godarl* says, " It is extremely 
common in France, where it is the greatest scourge of the kitchen- 
gardens. It devours all the plants we cultivate, but principally 
the different sorts of cabbages, giving the preference to the 
Brassica capitata alba (the cauliflower). From quitting the egg 
vmtil its last moult, it not only attacks tlie exterior leaves of that 
plant, but it penetrates afterwards into the heart ; and as there are 
generally many together, they hollow it out entirely without any 
external indications. In countries where the tobacco is cultivated, 
they equally attack that plant, in spite of its acrimony." When 
full-grown, some bury themselves in the earth and others rest upon 
the surface, and change to chrysalides similar to fig. 14, but 
smaller, of a chestnut colour with a pitchy shade ; they are often 
enclosed in cases formed of the surrounding mould, and thus pass 
the winter securely : but many of them do not change to pupae 
until April. The moths, as before stated, issue from these cells 
in May or June. 
The most certain means of getting rid of these troublesome 
caterpillars is to look over the plants carefully and destroy them; 
and as they frequently hide themselves by day under the earth, 
when they are in their last skins, the search might be more suc- 
cessfully pursued at night when they come forth to feed. 
The second species now forms a portion of the Genus Tri- 
rii^NA,| and is called 
2. Noctua (Triphaena) pronuba, hinn. ; the Great Yellow 
Underwing (fig. 4). This moth varies greatly in the colour of 
the thorax and the upper wings^ which are sometimes of a dull 
ochraceous or clay-colour, at others of a deep chestnut-brown, 
and there is an intermediate variety more fulvous and variegated 
with bright brown; the feelers are pointed, forming a beak to 
the head, and between them is a longish spiral tongue ; the 
horns are slender and setaceous, like bristles ; the eyes large 
and semiglobose ; the thorax is large ; the wings when at rest 
cover each other horizontally, being depressed ; the superior 
are long, and have two double-waved strigae towards the base 
* Hist. Nat. des Lep. de France, vol. vii., p. 38. 
t Curlis's Guide, Genus 843, and Brit. Ent. fol. and pi. 348, 
