282 AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 



vere summer pruning, which in some cases threatens serious 

 injury, though in others the unsightliness produced is the 

 only evil. 



The young larvae, when first hatched, are about one twentieth 

 of an inch long, yellowish white in color, with eyes and claws 

 tinged with red. They immediately drop from the tree, un- 

 less the branches have previously fallen, and enter the ground 

 for their long imprisonment, and are supposed by some to do 

 extensive though unseen injury to the roots of trees during 

 their progress to their mature condition. 



They are peculiarly a woodland insect, not being produced 

 upon the prairies of the West, and disappearing from culti- 

 vated fields. Certain insects, birds, and probably vermin, de- 

 stroy them in their various stages, so that, although the num- 

 ber hatched seems incalculable, they do not, on the whole, ad- 

 vance in numbers, but probably rather recede. 



ROSE BUG, OR MACRODACTYLUS SUBSPINOSA. 

 Fig. 141. This is an insect of the beetle tribe, about 



half an inch long, of a yellowish-brown color, 

 having, like the May-bug, a pair of gauze wings 

 protected by hard coverings, and large feet 

 that feel like claws when they touch the skin. 

 They appear suddenly in June, and continue for 



a. Insect perfected. J > . 



6. Eggs as deposited a few weeks, when the tcmales crawl into the 

 ground, where they deposit about thirty eggs, 

 which are whitish and almost globular. These hatch in about 

 twenty days, and the young grow to their full size before win- 

 ter. At the approach of severe weather they descend into the 

 ground below the reach of frost, and become torpid. Reviving 

 in the spring, and working their way back to the surface, un- 

 dergoing in the mean time some changes, they come out to 

 their accustomed work at the usual season, all prepared for 

 mischief. 



They are voracious yet dainty feeders, preferring the blos- 

 soms of the rose and the grape, and the ripening fruit of 

 the cherry, which they utterly destroy ; but when these can 

 not be had, stripping the linden and cherry trees of their 



