CABBAGE BUTTERFLY, a name common to several species of butterfly, the larva; of which devour the leaves of cruciferous plants, especially of the cabbage tribe, and are popularly known as cabbage-worms or kale-worms. The large C. B., or large white garden butterfly (pontia brassica, or pteris brassiere), is one of the most common of Brit ish butterflies. It is white; the wings tipped and spotted with black. The wings, when expanded, measure from 2i to 3 in. across. The antenna terminate in an ovoid club. The female lays her eggs, which are conical and bright yellow, in clusters of 20 or 30, on the leaves of the plants which are the destined food of the caterpillars. The caterpillars, when fully grown, are about 1 in. or 14- in. long, and are excess ively voracious, eating twice their own weight of cabbage-leaf in 24 hours. When full grown, they suspend themselves by their tails, often under ledges of garden walls, or similar projections, and are metamorphosed into shining pale-green chrysa lids, spotted with black, from which the perfect insect emerges, either in the same season or after the lapse of a winter—no longer to devour cabbage leaves, but to subsist delicately upon honey, which it sucks from flowers.—See INsEars.—The
small C. B., or small garden white butterfly, sometimes called the turnip butterfly (pontia, or pieris rapa), very much resembles the large C. B., but the expanse of the wings is only about 2 inches. The eggs are laid singly on the under side of the leaves of cabbages, turnips, etc., and the caterpillars, which are of a velvety appear ance, pale green, with a yellow line along the back, and a yellow dotted line on each side, sometimes appear in great numbers, and prove very destructive. They bore into the hearts of cabbages, instead of merely stripping the leaves, like those of the last species, and thus are a greater pest, even when comparatively few. The chrysalis is of a pale reddish-brown color, freckled with black.—A third species, also common in Britain, the green-veined white butterfly (pontiaorpieris napi), very nearly resembles the small cabbage butterfly.—The excessive multiplication of these insects is generally prevented by small birds, which devour them and their caterpil lars, and by insects of the ichneumon (q.v.) tribe, which lay their eggs in the caterpillars, that their own larva may feed on them.