The caterpillar ([Fig. 145]) is of a yellowish green, or rather greenish yellow, with three yellow longitudinal stripes separated by little black points, from each of which springs a whitish hair. It lives in groups on the cabbages in gardens, and on many other Cruciferæ. It is so voracious that it consumes in a day more than double its own weight, and, as it multiplies very quickly, commits great ravages in the vegetable garden. Its pupa ([Fig. 145]) is of an ashy white, spotted with black and yellow.
The Pieris rapæ, or Small White Butterfly, differs but little from the preceding except in size. The caterpillar, which lives on the cabbage, turnip, mignonette, nasturtium, &c., is green, with three yellow lines. It does not do these much harm. In France it is called le ver du cœur (the heartworm), because it penetrates in between leaves pressed closely together.
The Pieris napi ([Fig. 146]), the Green-veined White, is very like the two preceding, but the wings, the lower one especially, have underneath broad veins, or bands, of a greenish colour. The Pieris callidice, the wings of which are white spotted with black, is common in the Alps of France, in Savoy and Switzerland, and in the Pyrenees. Its caterpillar lives near the regions of perpetual snow, on small cruciferous plants.
| Fig. 146.—Pieris napi. | Fig. 147.—Anthocharis cardamines. |
The Orange-tips have, in the males, the extremity of the upper wings of a beautiful orange yellow. The rest of the wings is white in the only British species ([Fig. 147]), which is to be seen in meadows from the end of April till the end of May, and sulphur-coloured in some other species.
One species, extremely common, and which appears with but short interruption from the beginning of spring till the end of autumn, is the Brimstone Butterfly (Rhodocera [Gonepteryx] rhamni). The wings are a lemon yellow, with an orange-coloured spot in the middle of each, and the front border terminated in a series of very small iron-coloured spots. The body of the butterfly is black with silvery hairs.
Fig. 148.—Thecla betulæ.
The Colias edusa, or Clouded-yellow, so called from the colour of the upper part of its wings, is not uncommon in meadows and fields in early autumn throughout Europe. The upper side of the wings is of a marigold yellow; the upper ones having towards the middle a large spot of black. At the extremity of each wing is a broad black band, continuous in the case of the male, interrupted by yellow spots in the female. The back of the body is yellow; the legs, as well as the antennæ, rosy.