390 RAVAGES OF INSECTS. 



between the turf and the soil, and devouring the roots of 

 grass and other plants ; so that the turf may easily be 

 rolled off, as if cut by a turfing spade, while the soil under- 

 neath for an inch or more is turned into soft mould like 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 

 afiirmed they gathered eighty bushels of them ; and the 

 grabs 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 ^ 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," saj^s Salisbury, "seeing in a nursery 

 near Bagshot, several acres of young forest trees, particu- 

 larly larch, the roots of which were completely 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 (^Cetoiiia auratd), which feeds on the 

 roots of trees. 



The grub of an allied genus, the midsummer chafer 

 (^Zanthsumia solstitidlis, Leach), has for the last two years 

 been abundant on Lewisham Hill, Blackheath, doing con- 

 siderable injury to herbage and garden plants. This beetle 

 may be known from being smaller and paler than the cock- 

 chafer, and from its not appearing before midsummer. 

 The grub is very similar. 



The best way of preventing the ravages of these insects 

 would be to employ children to collect the perfect insects 

 when they first appear, before they lay their eggs; but 

 when a field is once overrun with the larva, nothing can 



* Pliil. Trans., vol. xliv. p. 579. f Anim. Biog., vol. iii. p. 233. 

 X Anderson's Recr. in Agricult., vol. iii. p 420. § Hints, p. 74. 



