26 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



The animals and birds appointed to check the ravages of 

 these insects, are, according to Latreille, the badger, weasel, 

 martin, bats, rats, the common dung-hill fowl, and the goat- 

 sucker or night-hawk. To this list may be added the common 

 crow, which devours not only the perfect insects, but their 

 larvae, for which purpose it is often observed to follow the 

 plough. In " Anderson's Recreations " it is stated, that " a 

 cautious observer, having found a nest of five young jays, 

 remarked, that each of these birds, while yet very young, 

 consumed at least fifteen of these full-sized grubs in one day, 

 and of course would require many more of a smaller size. Say 

 that, on an average of sizes, they consumed twenty a-piece, 

 these for the five make one hundred. Each of the parents 

 consume say fifty ; so that the pair and family devour two 

 hundred every day. This, in three months, amounts to twenty 

 thousand in one season. But as the grub continues in that 

 state four seasons, this single pair, with their family alone, 

 without reckoning their descendants after the first year, would 

 destroy eighty thousand grubs. Let us suppose that the half, 

 namely, forty thousand, are females, and it is known that they 

 usually lay about t^vo hundred eggs each, it will appear, that 

 no less than eight millions have been destroyed, or prevented 

 from being hatched, by the labors of a single family of jays. 

 It is by reasoning in this way, that we learn to know of what 

 importance it is to attend to the economy of nature, and to be 

 cautious how we derange it by our short-sighted and futile 

 operations." Our own country abounds with insect-eating 

 beasts and birds, and without doubt the more than abundant 

 Melolonthae form a portion of their nourishment. 



We have several Melolonthians whose injuries in the perfect 

 and grub state apjiroach to those of the European cockchafer. 

 PhyUophaga* qucrcina of Knoch, the May-beetle, as it is gen- 

 erally called here, is our common species. It is of a chestnut- 

 brown color, smooth, but finely punctured, that is, covered with 

 little impressed dots, as if pricked with the point of a needle ; 



* A genus proposed by me in 182G. It signifies leaf-cater. Dejean subse- 

 quently called this genus Ancylonycha. 



