204 PROTECTION AGAINST INSECTS. 



seedlings or pricked-out plants may be seen with drooping 

 and dying heads, and reddish foliage or needles. If they are 

 pulled up, it will be found that the ends of the roots have been 

 eaten, and occasionally the larva itself may be found in situ at 

 the base of the injured root. Figs. 75 and 76 show the roots 

 of attacked beech and Scots pine seedlings. The larvae are 

 also extremely destructive to meadows and agricultural crops. 



The imago attacks the foliage of broadleaved species from 

 May till July, probably sparing the robinia and pear only. 

 The oak is most subject to this attack ; then follow maples, 

 sweet- and horse-chestnut, poplars, plum and cherry-trees. 

 The beech, hornbeam, willows, apple, birch, plane-tree, and 

 many shrubs, etc., are also attacked, the order in which the 

 different species are selected depending on the degree of 

 development they have attained when the flight-time takes 

 place. Conifers are less to their taste than broadleaved 

 species, but the images in May and June will feed on young 

 shoots and needles of larch, and the male catkins of Scots 

 pine and spruce, occasionally on the spring shoots of isolated 

 silver-firs. Trees standing in the open, and border trees are 

 preferred, as the flight of the insect to them is less impeded 

 than it is to trees in the midst of a wood. Lofty trees are also 

 preferred to low growth. In 1878, in the Austrian coast 

 districts, Quevcus pubescens suffered greatly, and even the 

 walnut was attacked, a rare event. The oak trees were 

 completely stripped of leaves, but became green again by 

 means of Lammas-shoots. 



The larvae prefer sandy soil in sunny places, bare, or with a 

 scanty covering of grass, and large forest cultivations after 

 a clear cutting. Extensive cultivations of Scots pine 

 bordering on agricultural land suffer most of all. Stiff soil 

 covered with dense herbage, damp depressions and well-trodden 

 paths are avoided. The pine forests of Brandenburg show 

 how closely connected swarms of cockchafers are with the 

 clear-cutting system. 



d. Protective Rules. 



i. Natural regeneration under a shelter-wood system should 

 be practised. Supposing that this is impracticable owing to 



