I found them dispersed all over the neighbouring walls, some thirty yards off. The thrust of a ledge, the eaves formed by a projecting bit of mortar served them as a shelter where the chrysalid moult took place and where the winter was passed. The Cabbage-caterpillar possesses a robust constitution, unsusceptible to torrid heat or icy cold. All that he needs for his metamorphosis is an airy lodging, free from permanent damp. The inmates of my fold, therefore, move about for a few days on the trelliswork, anxious to travel afar in search of a wall. Finding none and realizing that time presses, they resign themselves. Each one, supporting himself on the trellis, first weaves around himself a thin carpet of white silk, which will form the sustaining layer at the time of the laborious and delicate work of the nymphosis. He fixes his rear-end to this base by a silk pad and his fore-part by a strap that passes under his shoulders and is fixed on either side to the carpet. Thus slung from his three fastenings, he strips himself of his larval apparel and turns into a chrysalis in the open air, with no protection save that of the wall, which the caterpillar would certainly have found had I not interfered. Of a surety, he would be short-sighted indeed that pictured a world of good things prepared exclusively for our advantage. The earth, the great foster-mother, has a generous breast. At the very moment when nourishing matter is created, even though it be with our own zealous aid, she summons to the feast host upon host of consumers, who are all the more numerous and enterprising in proportion as the table is more amply spread. The cherry of our orchards is excellent eating: a maggot contends with us for its possession. In vain do we weigh suns and planets: our supremacy, which fathoms the universe, cannot prevent a wretched worm from levying its toll on the delicious fruit. We make ourselves at home in a cabbage-bed: the sons of the Pieris make themselves at home there too. Preferring broccoli to wild radish, they profit where we have profited; and we have no remedy against their competition save caterpillar-raids and egg-crushing, a thankless, tedious and none too efficacious work. Every creature has its claims on life. The Cabbage-caterpillar eagerly puts forth his own, so much so that the cultivation of the precious plant would be endangered if others concerned did not take part in its defence. These others are the auxiliaries, [48] our helpers from necessity and not from sympathy. The words friend and foe, auxiliaries and ravagers are here the mere conventions of a language not always adapted to render the exact truth. He is our foe who eats or attacks our crops; our friend is he who feeds upon our foes. Everything is reduced to a frenzied contest of appetites.