87 
KALE. 
White Cabbage Butterflies. Pieris brassier, Latr., and P. rapes, 
Latr. 
Pieris brassica:. 
1, Female of Large White Cabbage Butterfly; 2, eggs; 3, caterpillar; 4, chrysalis. 
The caterpillars of the White Cabbage Butterflies were destructive 
last year at various places, on Kale, Cabbage, and “ Green-crops.” 
They were reported as “ more common at Staines than they had been 
for five or six years.” 
At St. Alban’s I found them on Cabbage or Cauliflower plants in 
my garden at Torrington House, when I moved there in September, in 
such numbers as to attract the attention of every one who came near. 
The position was very warm and sunny, sheltered from the north by a 
high garden wall and the ground sloping rapidly down to the valley 
with a S.S.W. exposure, and the caterpillar swarmed to such an 
extent that some of the plants were eaten down to complete skeletons. 
This was a case in which hand-picking would have saved the crop, but 
being much occupied from change of residence I could not attend 
fully. Many of the caterpillars, as is their custom, wandered away, 
and, after crawling away about the width of the garden down the hill 
and over the wall, went into chrysalis on the sunny side. 
This habit of the caterpillar is one great means of checking 
increase; it chooses such places as sheltered spots on walls, under 
eaves and copings, in garden sheds, and under old wood, &c., that may 
be lying about, to change to chrysalis in. There it hangs itself up by 
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