44^ THE INSECT WORLD. 



to inflate themselves like balloons in order to rise into the air : it is 

 a peculiarity which they share with the migratory locust. Before 

 taking its flight, the cockchafer agitates its wings for some minutes, 

 and inflates its abdomen with air. The French children, who 

 perceive this manoeuvre, say that the cockchafer ''compte ses ecus'' 

 (is counting its money), and they sing to it this refrain, which has 

 l3een handed down for many generations :— 



'* Hanneton, vole, vole, 

 Va-t'en a I'ecole." 



A variation which we hear in the western provinces of France ii 

 the following : — 



** Barbot, vole, vole, vole, 

 Ton peie est a I'ecole, 

 Qui m'a dit, si tu ne voles, 



II te coupera la gorge 

 Avec un grand couteau de Saint-George." 



% 



During the day the cockchafers remain under the leaves in a state 

 of perfect immobility ; for the heat which gives activity to other 

 insects, seems, on the contrary, to stupefy them, and it is during the 

 night only that they devour the leaves of elms, poplars, oaks, beech, 

 birch-trees, &c. In years when their number is not very great, one 

 hardly perceives the damage done by them ; but at certain periods 

 they appear in innumerable legions, and then whole parts of gardens 

 or woods are stripped of their verdure, and present, in the middle of 

 the summer, the appearance of a winter landscape. The trees thus 

 stripped do not in general die ; but they recover their former vigour 

 with difticulty, and, in the case of orchard trees, remain one or two 

 years without bearing fruit. It is principally the trees skirting woods, 

 and situated along cultivated fields, which are exposed to the ravages 

 of the cockchafer, because the larvae of these insects are developed 

 in the fields. In the interior of forests they are never met with in 

 great numbers. 



In certain years cockchafers multiply in such a frightful manner 

 that they devastate the whole vegetation of a country. In the 

 environs of Blois 14,000 cockchafers were picked up by children in 

 a few days. At Fontainebleau they could have gathered as many 

 in a certain year in as many hours. Sometimes they congregate in 

 swarms, like locusts, and migrate from one locality to another, when 

 they lay waste everything. To present an idea of the prodigious 

 extant to which cockchafers increase under certain circumstances, 



