32 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



to check and extirpate as the destructive vine-chafers of Eu- 

 rope. 



The rose-chafer, or rose-bug, as it is more commonly and 

 incorrectly called, is also a diurnal insect. It is the Melolontha 

 subspinosa of Fabricius, by whom it was first described, and be- 

 longs to the modern z,enus* Macrodactylus of Latreille. Common 

 as this insect is in the vicinity of Boston, it is, or was a few years 

 ago, unknown in the northern and western parts of Massachusetts, 

 in New Hampshire, and in Maine. It may, therefore, be well to 

 give a brief description of it. This beetle measures seven twen- 

 tieths of an inch in length. Its body is slender, tapers before and 

 behind, and is entirely covered with very short and close ashen- 

 yellow down ; the thorax is long and narrow, angularly widened 

 in the middle of each side, which suggested the name subspinosa, 

 or somewhat spined ; the legs are slender, and of a pale red color ; 

 the joints of the feet are tipped with black, and are very long, 

 which caused Latreille to call the genus Macrodactylus, that is 

 long toe, or long foot. The natural history of the rose-chafer, 

 one of the greatest scourges with which our gardens and nurseries 

 have been afflicted, was for a long time involved in mystery, but 

 is at last fully cleared up.f The prevalence of this insect on the 

 rose, and its annual appearance coinciding with the blossoming of 

 that flower, have gained for it the popular name by which it is 

 here known. For some time after they were first npticed, rose- 

 bugs appeared to be confined to their favorite, the blossoms of 

 the rose ; but within thirty years they have prodigiously increased 

 in number, have attacked at random various kinds of plants in 

 swarms, and have become notorious for their extensive and de- 

 plorable ravages. The grape-vine in particular, the cherry, 

 plum, and apple trees, have annually suffered by their depreda- 

 tions ; many other fruit-trees and shrubs, garden vegetables and 



* Stenothorax, in my prize essay. 



\ See my essay in the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal, 

 Vol. X. p. 8; reprinted in the New England Farmer, Vol. VI. p. 18, &c.; my 

 Discourse before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, p. 31, 8vo. Cambridge, 

 1832. Dr. Greene's communication on this insect in the New England Farmer, 

 Vol. VI. pp. 41, 49, «&c., and my Report on Insects injurious to Vegetation, in 

 Massachusetts, House Document, No. 72, April, 1838, p. 70. 



