or 
2 LAMELLICORNIA. | Melolontha. 
poisonous substances, and if merely dislodged for the time would soon 
return again; hand-picking or beating is occasionally of service, as the 
beetles are easily captured on warm days, as they are very sluggish and 
cling beneath the leaves; on one occasion, referred to by Miss Ormerod 
(Manual of [njurious Insects, page 208) eighty bushels of the beetle 
were collected on one farm; birds and pigs, however, are the great 
enemies of the insect, rooks ‘and sea- culls especially devouring them 
with eagerness both in the larval and perfect state; these birds therefore 
should be always encouraged ; rooks are often credited with pulling up 
plants or corn, but if each separate case were examined, it would be 
found that they destroyed little if anything beyond the infested plant, 
which would in any case have died, and left the larva free to attack 
others; the pest in all probability might be much diminished by ploughing 
the land, turning in pigs and poultry and encouraging the rooks, &c., and 
then going over it with a heavy roller, which would destroy the remainder 
that had escaped. 
Two species of Melolontha are found in Britain; they may be dis- 
tinguished as follows :— 
I. Pygidium elongate in both sexes and Braga narrowed 
to apex ; average size larger. . . - «= MavunGaris; a. 
II. Pygidium shorter, constr icted at base and very slightly 
widened at apex ; average sizesmaller . . . . . . M. HIPPOCASTANI, F. 
M. vulgaris, F. Oblong, moderately convex, but somewhat de- 
pressed on disc ; head black with clypeus reddish in front, anterior 
margin raised, with rather long yellowish pubescence at sides, antenne 
10-jointed, reddish-testaceous ; thorax transverse, black, or occasionally 
reddish, rounded at sides and narrowed in front, posterior angles pro- 
jecting, strongly and not very closely punctured on disc, more thickly 
at sides, pubescent; scutellum large, almost semicircular, sparingly 
punctured, black; elytra ‘ferruginous or  reddish-testaceous, finely 
pubescent, with four raised lines on each, almost alutaceous, the seulp- 
ture being shallow and consisting of large and small punctures inter- 
mingled and more or less running into one another; under-side clothed 
with greyish or yellowish pubescence, which is much longer on the front 
part than on the abdomen; legs reddish-testaceous. L. 92-26 mm. 
Male with the thorax villose at sides, and the antenne terminated by 
a club consisting of seven lamellae, which is longer than the funiculus ; 
the third joint of the antenne is somewhat dilated at apex, and bears a 
small setigerous tubercle. 
Female with the thorax simply pubescent, and the antenne terminated 
by a club consisting of six lamellae, which is shorter than the funiculus, 
About trees, &c.; flying at dusk; common and generally distributed from the 
midland distiieta southwards, but gradually becoming less common further north, 
Liverpool district, by no means abundant (Ellis); Scotland, local, Solway, Clyde, 
_ Forth, Tay and Argyle districts; Ireland, generally distributed, and common in the 
‘south. 
