THE COCK-CHAFER. 473 



of winter. The noise which these enormous swarms made i-_ dei/iL^^ 

 and devouring the leaves, was so loud as to have been compared to 

 the distant sawing of timber. Swine and poultry destroyed them in 

 vast numbers. These waited under the trees for the clusters dropping, 

 and devoured such swarms as to become fat upon them alone. Evea 

 the native Irish, from the insects having eaten up the whole produce 

 of the ground, adopted a mode of cooking them, and used them aa 

 food. Towards the end of summer they disappearec* so suddenly, 

 that, in a few days, there was not a single one left. 



About sixty years ago a farm near Norwich, Englan .., was so infested 

 with Cock-chafers, that the farmer and his servants uifirmed that they 

 gathered eighty bushels of them ; and the grubs had done so much 

 injury, that the court of that city, in compassion to the poor man'a 

 misfortune, allowed him 25Z. 



Rooks and Gulls devour immense numbers of the grubs of this de- 

 structive insect, by which they render a most essential service to 

 mankind, and great care ought to be taken to cherish and protect them. 

 The chief employment of Rooks, during nearly three months in the 

 spring of the year, is to search for insects of this sort as food ; and the 

 havoc that a numerous flock makes among mem must be very great. 



A gentleman, having found a nest of five young Jays, remarked 

 that each of these birds, while yet very young, consumed at least 

 fifteen full-sized grubs of the Chafer in a day ; and averaging their 

 sizes, it may be said that each consumed twenty : this for the fiva 

 makes a hundred ; and if we suppose the parents to devour between 

 them the same number, it appears that the whole family consumed 

 about two hundred everyday. These in three months, would amount 

 to twenty thousand. But as the grub continues in the same state for 

 four years, this single pair, with their family alone, without reckoning 

 their descendants after the first year, would destroy as many as eighty 

 thousand grubs. Now, supposing that forty thousand of these may be 

 females, and that each female lays, as is the case, about two hundred 

 eggs,, it will appear that no fewer than eight millions of grubs have 

 been destroyed, or at least prevented from being hatched, by this sin- 

 gle f^imily of Jays. 



It is true, that in these labors of the Rooks, Jays, and some other 

 birds, they sometimes do mischief to man ; and yet there can be little 

 doubt, that the damage they thus commit is amply repaid by the 

 benefits that result from these their unceasing exertions. 



Some farmers plough the ground in order to expose the grubs to 

 the birds ; and others take the pains to dig ueeper, wherever the Rooka 

 point them out by their attempts to reach them. When the insects are 

 in their winged stiite, to shake the trees at noon, during the time that 

 they are all either asleep or in a state of inactive stupor, and to gather 

 or sweep them up from the ground, seems the most eligible method. 

 One person has been known to kill in a day, by this method, above a 

 thousand : by which, though in so short a space of time, at a fair cal- 

 culation, he prevented no fewer than a hundred thousand eggs from 

 being laid. 



