^26 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. « 



defoliated by them; and Salisbury says, the leaves of 

 the oaks in Richmond Park were so eaten by them, 

 that scarcely an entire leaf was left. But it is in their 

 previous larva state that they are most destructive, as 

 we shall see by tracing their history. 



The mother cockchafer, when about to lay her eggs, 

 digs into the earth of a meadow or corn-field to the 

 depth of a span, and deposits tliem in a cluster at the 

 bottom of the excavation. Rosel, in order to watch 

 their proceedings, put some females into glasses half- 

 filled with earth, covered with a tuft of grass, and a 

 piece of thin muslin. In a fortnight, he found some 

 hundreds of eggs deposited, of an oval shape and a 

 pale yellow colour. Placing the glass in a cellar, the 

 eggs were hatched towards autumn, and the grubs in- 

 creased remarkably in size. In the following JMay 

 they fed so voraciously that they required a fresh turf 

 every second day; and even this proving too scanty 

 provender, he sowed in several garden pots a crop of 

 peas, lentils, and salad, and when the plants came up, 

 he put a pair of grubs in each pot; and in this man- 

 ner he fed them through the second and third years. 

 During this period, tliey cast their skins three or four 

 times, going for this purpose deeper into the earth, 

 and burrowing out a hole where they might effect 

 their change undisturbed; and they do the same in 

 winter, during which they become torpid and do not 

 eat. 



When the grub changes into a pupa, in the third 

 autumn afler it is hatched, it digs a similar burrow 

 about a yard deep; and when kept in a pot, and pre- 

 vented from going deep enough, it shows great un- 

 easiness and often dies. The perfect beetle comes 

 forth from the pupa in January or February; but it is 

 then as soft as it was whilst still a grub, and does 

 not acquire its hardness and colour for ten or twelve 

 days, nor does it venture above ground before May, 



