ROSE-BUG ITS ENEMIES AND REMEDIES. 251 



into the ground, where they deposit their eggs, which are about 

 thirty in number, whitish, and almost globular. These hatch 

 twenty days afterwards, and the little grubs which come from 

 them, feed upon whatever tender, juicy roots they find. They 

 grow to their full size before winter, and are then three-quarters 

 of an inch long, and an eighth broad, of a yellowish white color, 

 the head darker, tawny yellow and polished, and with six short 

 legs inserted beneath upon the breast. The last segment of their 

 bodies is much the largest, bluntly rounded at its end, and is 

 turned under the body. To pass the winter these grubs descend 

 in the ground below the reach of frost, and become torpid. When 

 warm weather returns they revive and crawl back towards the 

 surface, and each worm then forms for itself a pod-like cell of 

 a regular oval form, and smooth on its inside. This is made by 

 the worm turning round and round in one spot, whereby the 

 dirt surrounding it becomes firmly compacted together. In this 

 cell it changes to a pupa, which is soft and of the same color as 

 the worm, but in shape resembles the beetle, the short wings and 

 the horns and legs being traced out upon its surface, enveloped 

 in a thin film, which, when the beetle becomes matured, is cast 

 off. It then breaks open the earthy pod and digs through the 

 ground till it reaches the surface. On its first coming out it is 

 found upon the oak and elm before it invades either the wild or 

 the garden rose. 



These beetles have several natural enemies. The large dragon- 

 fly or darning needles, and several other predaceous insects, 

 seize and devour numbers of them, whilst the insect-eating birds 

 as well as dung-hill fowls have been' said to feast and fatten 

 upon them. But when they become so excessively multiplied 

 as they do in particular districts, these natural enemies are 

 unable to produce any material diminution in the myriads which 

 are abroad, and it becomes necessary to resort to artificial means 

 for destroying them. The only reliable measure for this pur- 

 pose, yet known, is to gather them day after day by hand, or by 

 brushing them into tin vessels of water, and by shaking and 

 beating them from trees into sheets spread underneath, and then 

 crushing, burning, or scalding them. This beetle is easily 

 captured, being sluggish and drone-like in its motions, and a 



