CHAFER TRANSFORMATIONS. 79 



drawing-room or ladies' boudoir ; neither, we consider, would 

 it be employment unbefitting for ladies' fingers to supply the 

 captives with fresh flowers, or treat them with ripe strawberries. 



Well, but perhaps say you, when the last rose of summer is 

 departed, and the last strawberry is gathered, what then will 

 become of our rose beetles ? Why, for lack of summer flowers, 

 the rose, the peony, and elder, they must content themselves 

 with flowers of autumn, dahlia, marigold, and aster, and 

 with autumn fruits, the plum and pear. But when winter 

 conies in earnest ? Then it is likely that, according to the 

 usage of their out-door brethren, which retire for the season to 

 chambers underground, your domesticated chafers may betake 

 themselves, for the same, to the bed provided them. In the 

 case however (though this is not, we believe, in favour of their 

 longevity) of their being roused to activity by the warmth of 

 house or fire, a moistened fragment of our " staff of life " will 

 suffice amply to support the light burthen of their vitality. 



We have said nothing, hitherto, of the earliest, which is 

 almost beyond doubt the longest period of the rose-chafer's 

 existence, however far extended. Like the rest of its tribe, 

 this pretty beetle undergoes the usual triple metamorphoses of 

 insect life. From an egg laid within the earth, he emerges, a 

 grub or larva, to feed on roots, most usually those of the rose; 

 the ' ' family tree " from whence his parents, at all events his 

 mother, has descended. Thus hermit-like, and upon this 

 hermit's fare, he lives in dark seclusion for four years, and 



