228 INSECT TKANSFORMATIONS. 



turf may easily be rolled off, as if cut by a turfing- 

 spade, while the soil underneath, for an inch or more, 

 is turned into soft mould liUe the bed of a garden. 

 Mr. Anderson, of Norwich, mentions having seen 

 a whole field of fine flourishing grass so under- 

 mined by these grubs, that in a few weeks it became 

 as dry, brittle, and withered as hay* Bingley also 

 tells us that " about sixty years ago, a farm near 

 Norwich was so infested with cockchafers, that the 

 farmer and his servants affirmed they gathered eighty 

 bushels of them ; and the grubs had done so much 

 injury, that the court of the city, in compassion to 

 the poor fellow's misfortune, allowed him twenty-five 

 pounds. "t In the year 1785, a farmer, near Blois 

 in France, employed a number of children and poor 

 persons to destroy the cockchafers at the rate of two 

 liards a hundred, and in a few days they collected 

 fourteen thousand. | 



" I remember," says Salisbury, " seeing, in a nur- 

 sery near Bagshot, several acres of young forest - 

 trees, particularly larch, the roots of which were com- 

 pletely destroyed by it, so much so, that not a single 

 tree was left alive. "§ We are doubtful, however, 

 whether this was the grub of the cockchafer, and 

 think it more likely to have been that of the green- 

 rose beetle {Cetonia awraia), which feeds on the roots 

 of trees. 



The grub of an allied genus, the midsummer- 

 chafer (Zantheumia Solstitialis, Leach), has for the 

 last two years been abundant on Lewisham Hill, 

 Blackheath, doing considerable injury to herbage and 

 garden-plants. This beetle may be known from 

 being smaller and paler than the cockchafer, and 

 from its not appearing before midsummer. The grub 

 is very similar. 



* Phllosoph. Trans, xliv. 579. f Aiiim. Biog. iii. 233. 

 '^ Anderson's Recr. ill Aj^aicult. iii. 120. § Hints, 74; 



