32 



inches beneath the surface of the soil, and are usually 

 hatched in twenty days. At the close of summer the 

 larvae, which are whitish grubs, attain their full size, 

 being then nearly three quarters of an inch long, de- 

 scend below the reach of frost, and pass the winter in 

 a torpid state. In the spring they approach the sur- 

 face, form htde cells or cavides by compressing the 

 earth around them, and become pupae. This change 

 occurs during the month of May ; and in the beginning 

 of June, having divested themselves of their pupa- 

 skins, they emerge from the earth in their perfect state. 

 Such being the metamorphoses and habits of these 

 insects, it is evident that we cannot attack them in the 

 egg, the larva, or the chrysalis state ; the enemy, in 

 these stages, is beyond our reach, and is subject to 

 the control only of the natural but inscrutable means 

 appointed by the Author of Nature to keep the insect 

 tribes in check. When they have issued from their 

 subteiTanean retreats, and have congregated upon our 

 vines, trees, and other vegetable productions, in the 

 complete enjoyment of their propensities, we must 

 unite our efforts to seize and crush the invaders. 

 They must indeed be crushed, scalded, or burned, to 

 deprive them of hfe, for none of the applications usually 

 found destructive to other insects seem to affect these. 

 Experience has proved the utility of ^gathering them 

 by hand, or of shaking them into vessels. They should 

 be collected daily during the period of their visitation, 

 Mr. Lowell* states, that in 1823 he discovered, on a 

 solitary apple-tree, the rose-bugs " in vast numbers, 



* Mass. Agr. Repos. Vol. IX. page 145. 



