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PIERIDAE 
pale ochreous-yellow dusted over with black scales, densest 
along the nervures, giving a rayed appearance and sometimes 
producing a dusky hue when very thickly dusted over the 
whole of the wing. In the summer brood the under side of 
both sexes is usually paler in colour and less dusted with black. 
Life of Imago. Probably about twenty-five days. 
Aberration. This fine butterfly is liable to some aberration, 
but striking variations are scarce. Occasionally the black 
spots of the female are united by a black band, and rarely 
a black spot occurs on the upper side of the fore wing in the 
male, smaller but similar to the upper spot in the female. 
An example, with broad black basal blotches to all the 
wings, has been recorded. In the Tring Museum is a male 
specimen with the whole of the ground colour a rich yellow 
with deep purplish-brown apical markings. 
In the same collection is a remarkable female example 
with the lower half of the under side of the left hind wing of 
similar pattern to the fore wing, having the black spots and 
a large amount of white duplicated ; in addition, the shape 
of the inner margin corresponds with that of the fore wing. 
Gynandromorphous specimens are extremely scarce. 
Genus PIERIS, Schrank , 1801 
THE SMALL WHITE 
Pieris rapae (Linn., 1758). 
(Plate XXVII, facing page 304) 
Although classed as one of the noxious garden pests, the 
Small White, owing to its solitary habits in the larval state, 
is not nearly so destructive to cabbage crops as the Large 
White. The food plants of both butterflies are similar. 
Haunts and Distribution. The Small White is one of the 
most abundant of the British butterflies. Except for the 
Shetlands and the Hebrides, it occurs everywhere throughout 
Britain. Abroad its range extends through Europe and Asia 
to Japan, and it is common over the whole of temperate America. 
Being a migratory species like the Large White, in some 
