INDIRECT INJUtllES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 207 



we see, as sometimes happens, the hedges and trees en- 

 tirely deprived of tlieir foliage, and ourselves of the 

 shade we love from the fervid beam of the noon-day 

 sun ; when the singing birds have deserted them ; and 

 ail their music, which has so often enchanted us by its 

 melody, variety, and sweetness, has ceased — we shall 

 be tempted in our hearts to wisli the whole insect race 

 was blotted from the page of creation. Numerous 

 are the agents employed in this work of destruction. 

 Amongst the beetles, various cockchafers (lifelolontha 

 vulgaris, solstkialis, and horticola, F.) in tlieir perfect 

 state act as conspicuous a part in injuring the trees, as 

 their grubs do in destroying the herbage. Besides the 

 leaves of fruit-trees, they devour those of the sycamore, 

 the lime, the beech, the willow, and the elm. They are 

 sometimes, especially the common one, astonishingly 

 numerous. Mouffet relates (but one would think that 

 there must be some mistake in the date, since they are 

 never so early in their appearance,) that on the 24th of 

 February 1 574 such a number of them fell into the river 

 Severn as to stop the wheels of the water-mills ^ It 

 is also recorded in the Philosophical Ti^ansactions^ that 

 in 1688 they filled the hedges and trees of part of the 

 county of Galway in such infinite numbers, as to cliKg- 

 to each other in clusters like bees when they swarm ; 

 on the wing they darkened the air, and produced a 

 sound like that of distant drums. When they were 

 feeding, the noise of their jaws might be mistaken for 

 the sawing of timber. Travellers and people abroad 

 were very much annoyed by their continual flying in 

 their faces ; and in a short time the leaves of all the 



- *Mouffet, 160. 



