1838. HOUSE— No. 72. 69 



fowls. The perfect insect is devoured by some nocturnal animal, 

 which frequents our gardens for that purpose, and whose beneficial 

 foraging is detected by its abundant excrement filled with the wing- 

 cases of the Melolontha. A writer in the " New York Evening 

 Post" says, that the beetles, which frequently commit serious ravages 

 on the fruit trees, may be effectually exterminated by shaking them 

 from the tree every evening. In this way two pails full of beetles 

 were collected on the first experiment ; the number caught regularly 

 decreased until the fifth evening, when only two beetles were to be 

 found. 



M. hirsuta is also found occasionally in gardens. 



jyi. balia is more common in forests. 



M. pilosicollis is quite common in gardens. 



M. variolosa is one ofour finest species as regards beauty and size. 

 It is not common. An individual was captured near the mall in 

 Boston, some years ago. 



JYl. vespertina and M. sericea are destructive to the naturalized 

 sweet-briar, on which the perfect insects may be found in profusion 

 in the night, about the last of June. 



All these species are nocturnal insects, never appearing except by 

 accident in the day, during which they remain under shelter of the 

 foliage of trees, or concealed in the grass. Others are truly day- 

 fliers, committing their ravages by the light of the sun, and are al- 

 ways present to our observation. One of them appears about the 

 middle of May, and may be found till the end of June. 



It eats the tender leaves of the pear-tree, and feeds also on those 

 of the poplar and oak. It is a large insect, and was described by 

 Linnaeus as the Scarabceus lanigerus. It is not constant in its ap- 

 pearance ; in some seasons being found in great profusion, when, by 

 shaking the young pear-trees, any number of them may be obtained. 

 MeJolonlha punctata is also a large species which is frequent on the 

 grape vine in July and August. M. varians, a smaller species, ap- 

 propriated to tlie cultivated and wild grape vine, is closely allied to 

 the vine-chaffer of France, but fortunately, its ravages are not as yet 

 so extensive as those of the latter. On these vines, and still more 

 profusely on the Sumach, (/2/ms Typhinum)^ it feeds during the 

 months of June and July. The rose-chaffer or rose-bug, as it is 



