COMMON COCKCHAFER. 205 



local conditions of climate and species of tree, narrow clear-cut 

 fellings, with reservation of standards, should be made. In 

 any case, large clear-cut felling-areas should be avoided. 

 Successive fellings should then be continued only after the 

 young crop on the last adjacent felling-area has been secured. 

 In districts where cockchafer damage is frequent, fellings 

 should be reduced as much as possible the year before and 

 during a swarm-year. Measures that keep the ground 

 sheltered, cool and moist, render the soil less suitable for 

 oviposition and for the larval life. 



ii. In case sowing is advisable, broadcast sowing should be 

 adopted in Scots pine woods, together with autumn sowings 

 of corn, or of birch seed. 



When only partial sowing is carried out, the seedlings come 

 up closer together than in the case of broadcast sowing, and 

 there is more danger of the whole crop being destroyed ; the 

 cockchafers avoid cereal crops and prefer not to lay their eggs 

 in places covered with growing corn. 



iii. Planting, and especially ball-planting with strong plants 

 is to be preferred to sowing; otherwise, notching with as 

 little disturbance of the soil as possible. 



In the Eberswald, planting in pits the surface of which after 

 planting is nearly a hand's breadth below the ground-level, 

 was tried with success ; the larvae which feed very near the 

 ground-level in summer crawl from the surrounding earth on 

 to the top of the pits, instead of getting to the roots of the 

 plants. 



iv. Pasturing herds of swine in all forest-glades. In the 

 swarm-years this should be done in spring ; whilst the larvae 

 are in the ground, during the whole summer. 



v. Protection of all enemies of the cockchafers. The 

 badger, mole, shrew, hedgehog, rooks and crows, starlings, etc., 

 attack the larvae; bats, owls, goatsuckers, shrikes, kestrels, 

 and harriers destroy the cockchafers. 



A starling will often carry off 5 or 6 larvae at once ; these 

 useful birds eat only the soft abdomens of the chafers. Boxes 

 for starlings to nest in should be always set up around forest 

 nurseries. 



vi. When laying-out nurseries, the neighbourhood of oak 



