856 THE entomologist's kecoed. 



days mentioned. When observed, they were usually flying about 4ft. 

 above the earth, and never more than about 20ft. high. 



That many insects are now much less common in the British 

 Islands than formerly is well shown by the records of the amazing 

 abundance of cockchafers some three hundred years ago. Thus 

 Hollingshed writes [('hnnddcs of Emjland , Scotland , and Ireland, iv., p. 

 326) : " The 24th day of Februarie (1575) being the Feast of Samt 

 Matthie, on which dai the faire was kept at Tewkesburie, a strange 

 thing happened there. For after a floud which was not great, but such 

 as thereby the medows neere adjoining were covered with water, and 

 in the afternoone, there came downe the river of Seuerne great numbers 

 of flies and beetles {Mdolontha ridoaris /), such as in summer evenings 

 use to strike men in the face, in great heapes, a foot thicke above the 

 water, so that to credible mens judgement there Avere seene within a 

 paire of huts length of those flies above a hundred quarters. The mils 

 there abouts were dammed up Avith them for the space of foure dales 

 after, and then were clensed by digging them out with shovels ; from 

 whence they came is yet unknowne, but the dale was cold and a hard 

 frost." Molyneux records (P/;?7. Trans. Ahrid;/., ii., pp. 781-3), in the 

 summer of 1688, in Ireland, such vast quantities of cockchafers "that 

 when, towards evening or sunset, they would arise, disperse, and fly 

 about, with a strange humming noise, much like the beating of drums 

 at some distance, they were in such vast incredible numbers, that they 

 darkened the air for a space of two or three miles square. The grinding 

 of leaves in the mouths of this vast multitude altogether, made a sound 

 very much resembling the sawing of timber." Writing of the same 

 insects, Figuier says : " Sometimes they congregate in swarms, like 

 locusts, and migrate from one locality to another, when they lay waste 

 everything. To present an idea of the prodigious extent to which 

 cockchafers increase under certain circumstances, we will give a few 

 statistics. In 1574, these insects were so abundant in England that 

 they stopped many mills on the Severn. In 1688, in the county of 

 Galway, in Ireland, they formed such a black cloud that the sky was 

 darkened for the distance of a league, and the country people had great 

 difhculty in making their hay in the places where they alighted. They 

 destroyed the whole of the vegetation in such a way that the landscape 

 assumed the desolate appearance of winter. In 1804 immense swarms 

 of cockchafers, precipitated by a violent wind into the Lake of Zurich, 

 formed on the shore a thick bank of bodies heaped up one on the 

 other, the putrid exhalations from which poisoned the atmosphere. 

 On May 18th, 1832, at nine o'clock in the evening, a legion of cock- 

 chafers assailed a diligence on the road from Gournay to Gisors, just 

 as it was leaving the village of Talmontiers ; the horses, blinded and 

 terrified, refused to advance, and the driver was obliged to return as 

 far as the village, to wait till this new sort of hail storm was over. M. 

 Mulsant in the Mojiograjdiie dcs Lamellicornes de la France, relates that, 

 in May, 1841, clouds of cockchafers traversed the Saone, from the south- 

 east in the direction of the north-west, and settled in the vineyards of 

 the Maconnais. The streets of the town of Macon were so full of them 

 that they were shovelled up with spades. At certain hours one could 

 not pass over the bridge without whirling a stick rapidly round and 

 round, to protect oneself against their touch. 



Turner notes {Zool., 1864, p. 8920) that a small longicorn beetle was 



