OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES 355 



HUMMING IN THE AIR. There is a natural occurrence to 

 be met with upon the highest part of our down in hot summer 

 days, which always amuses me much, without giving me any 

 satisfaction with respect to the cause of it ; and that is, a loud 

 audible humming of bees in the air, though not one insect is 

 to be seen. The sound is to be heard distinctly the whole 

 common through, from the Money Dells to Mr. White's avenue 

 gate. Any person would suppose that a large swarm of bees 

 was in motion, and playing about over his head. This noise 

 was heard last week, on June 28th. 



" Resounds the living surface of the ground, 

 Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum 

 To him who muses ... at noon. 



" Thick in yon stream of light a thousand ways. 

 Upward and downward, thwarting and convolved, 

 The quivering nations sport." THOMSON'S Seasons. 



WHITE. 



CHAFFERS. Cock-chaffers seldom abound of tener than once 

 in three or four years; when they swarm, they deface the 

 trees and hedges. Whole woods of oaks are stripped bare by 

 them. 



Chaffers are eaten by the turkey, the rook, and the house- 

 sparrow. 



The scarab&us solstitialis first appears about June 26th : 

 they are very punctual in their coming out every year. They 

 are a small species, about half the size of the May-chaffer, 

 and are known in some parts by the name of the fern-chaffer. 

 WHITE. 



A singular circumstance relative to the cock-chaffer, or, as 

 it is called here, the May-bug, scarab&us melolontha, hap- 

 pened this year (1800). My gardener, in digging some 

 ground, found, about six inches under the surface, two of 

 these insects alive and perfectly formed, so early as the 24th 

 March. When he brought them to me, they appeared to be 

 as perfect, and as much alive, as in the midst of summer, 

 crawling about as briskly as ever ; yet I saw no more of this 

 insect till the 22nd May, when it began to make its appear- 

 ance. How comes it, that though it was perfectly formed so 



