115 
“The cockchafer catchers should be provided with hooked poles, 
~with an awning cloth, or the like, and with bags for their catch. It 
will be well for them to go in little groups, and to make their rounds 
from the time of the first appearance of the insect. This last observa- 
tion is most important. On the 12th of May, for example [in France], 
no more than twenty per cent. of the cockchafers captured in the trees 
3 will be females. <A little later, on the contrary, the males will have dis- 
appeared, and scarcely any but females will be found. These, however, 
3 will have laid their eggs. 
x “The beetles may be most easily shaken down from the trees in 
__ which they are concealed, at the dawn of day, when they are still stupid 
: with the coolness of the night, and this is, consequently, the time at 
which these collections should be made. Two persons will do well to 
3 work together when tall trees are to be visited. One strikes the branches 
Z and shakes them by means of the hook fastened into the end of his 
E pole, while the other picks up the beetles. They can, of course, change 
a places occasionally. When there is grass under the trees a cloth must 
: be spread to catch the beetles, which would otherwise often be lost. It 
___will be very easy to clear the trees of smaller size by shaking them en- 
: ergetically, but not violently enough to break them. 
“Tt is perhaps in the canton of Mayenne that the cockchafer hunt 
is pursued by the inhabitants with the greatest method, energy, and 
perseverance. ‘There those engaged in the chase of the beetles are di- 
vided into squads of four (men, women, or children), each of which is 
furnished with the following instruments: (1) A sheet of burlap three 
yards by two, in the ends of which two flexible sticks are fastened. 
Strings intended to support the apparatus are attached to these sticks. 
3 (2) A long pole armed with an iron hook. (3) A sack of coarse cloth. 
The squad being thus equipped, two hold the sheet extended under the 
branches. Owing to the flexibility of the rods at the end, the surface 
+ of the sheet easily takes the concave form of a common hammock. The 
3 branches are then shaken with the hand or with the hooked stick, and 
the cockchafers fall upon the cloth and accumulate in the center.” 
Between 2 and 5 o'clock a. m. is the best time for capturing our 
American June beetles. If they are thus collected in very great num- 
bers, they may be most conveniently killed by throwing them into tubs 
or barrels of water with kerosene on the surface. If the number is so 
great as to be likely to be offensive if left to decay, they may be scat- 
tered upon the fields as a fertilizer. 
The foregoing method is but little likely to be brought into use on 
the scale required to make it effective unless the white grubs become, 
at least locally, more destructive than they are at present in any part 
of the State of Illinois. It is quite within the bounds of possibility, 
however, that this or some similar method will be ultimately forced 
upon the American farmer. 
Our June beetles are strongly attracted by lights; a disposition 
which may be used for their destruction in fields. An apparatus con- 
sisting of a lantern suspended over a tub of water, placed in or near 
_ trees or groves resorted to by the beetles, will often collect large num- 
____ bers of the adult insects, which, flying against the lantern, drop into 
the water, where they are readily killed if a little kerosene has been 
ei, 
