A Monthly Medium for Collectors and Students of Natural History. 
Address of Office: 369, EUSTON ROAD, LONDON, N.W. 
Vol. II. No. 18. DECEMBER, 1893. Price 2d. 
A GLIMPSE AT THE CABBAGE AND 
SOME CABBAGE EATERS* 
By H. Durrant. 
(Concluded from page 61.) 
Part II. Some Cabbage Eaters. 
UT the farmer has friends as well as foes—-friends who can 
help him when he cannot help himself and who, more¬ 
over, are constantly at work, need no explanations, 
require no thanks, and tolerate no interference. So that 
while he is swearing and fuming at his ill-luck, they are slaying 
his unwarrantable enemies—thousands at one fell stroke ! 
Yes, the Ichneumons are a brave and goodly crew, and deserve 
our best thanks and protection. But, we are tar from being well 
acquainted with their habits and life history, and I am sure a 
little energy in this direction would be well rewarded, for it is 
not an uninteresting group by an means. I daresay nearly every 
collector has had his experience with them—experience of such a 
character that no doubt made him very wild. I mean of course, 
when he brought home that beautiful larva of a “ good species” 
and carefully tended it with the hope of obtaining that beautiful 
“ cabinet specimen,” which should be the envy and rouse the 
base desire of his neighbour—his deadly rival. But fate willed it 
otherwise, and how blighted were his hopes, and how wicked his 
soul when he beheld one morning, the erstwhile holder of his 
hopes, stretched stiff in death, pierced with holes and surrounded 
* Read before the North Kent Entomological and Natural History Society, 
March 1st, 1893. 
