PLATE 5.
1. [Glanville Fritillary]
2. [Heath Fritillary]
3. [Comma]
4. [Small Tortoiseshell]
5. [Large Tortoiseshell]
6. [Camberwell Beauty]
7. [Peacock]
The caterpillar is rather hairy, dull-coloured underneath, black on the back, with two lines of broad red spots running from head to tail. When you find this caterpillar, you generally get a whole brood of them, as they are gregarious and live under a web until nearly fully fed.
The chrysalis is of a bright straw colour, spotted and streaked with black, and is not so angular as the chrysalis of the Large Garden White.
The butterfly is out in midsummer, and is rarely seen outside of the most southern counties, and even there it seems to prefer the coast. In Continental gardens it sometimes attacks the fruit-trees in such numbers as to constitute a plague.
The Large Garden White Butterfly (Pieris brassicæ) [Plate I.], Fig. 3, is well known to everybody. Town and country seem to be the same to him; indeed, I do believe he lives and thrives best in the town and village gardens; only twice have I met with the larva in a really wild situation, once finding a few caterpillars on a lonely shore in Arran, and I once got a chrysalis on a beech-tree trunk on the border of a large wood. Cabbage, kale, savoy, and cress, are the plants which the female usually selects as the most suitable to lay her eggs on, but as the caterpillars grow towards maturity there are few plants they will not attack, especially if they are driven by hunger and a lack of their usual food. The butterfly hardly needs description; suffice it to say that the female, besides having a rather larger expanse of black at the tip of the fore-wing, has also two black spots and a dash (see figure) on the same wing. These are entirely wanting on the upper side of the male, but are present on the under side. The male is a little smaller than the female. Beyond question this butterfly is the most destructive of all the British species; fortunately it is largely held in check by ichneumon flies. Once I brought home a dozen or two caterpillars of this species from an isolated locality on the Mull of Kintyre, hoping to obtain some possible varieties. Not one butterfly did I hatch; they had all been stung, and mostly by a large grey dipterous fly ([Plate XI.], Fig. 4), although some few contained the little blackish imp which is their usual parasite. This little fellow it is who spins the small cocoons round the shrivelled skin of the victim (see [Plate XI.], Figs. 3, 5).
The eggs are laid singly or in small groups on the backs of leaves, and are somewhat long; they are straw-coloured, and stand up on end, so they are not difficult to find and collect, or destroy if too numerous. The caterpillar is yellow, speckled with black, and slightly spiny; it is also one of the easiest and most satisfactory to preserve. The chrysalis may be found during the winter attached to walls and fences. The butterfly is common throughout the summer.
[Small Garden White (Pieris rapæ)], [Plate I.], Fig. 4.—This butterfly is very like the last, but much smaller. Both species are generally found together. On the wing and in the caterpillar state they find the same nooks and corners in which to pass the winter as chrysalids.
