COCKCHAFFER. 237 



above circumstance, therefore, is due probably to 

 some other cause. 



White has noticed the punctuality with which the 

 small midsummer chaffer comes out every year.* He 

 says, it first appears about June 26 ; which accords 

 exactly with the date of its appearance here. A mild 

 summer's evening, about the end of that month, 

 brings them out by hundreds, and they may then be 

 seen flying about the garden in all directions. Cats 

 are very fond of them, and devour great numbers, 

 which they catch by springing up at them as they 

 wheel over their heads. Very many of these insects, I 

 observe, fall down the chimneys into the rooms below. 



It is remarkable, that though this insect abounds 

 to such a degree in my garden every midsummer, 

 yet the pasture in front of my house has never been 

 attacked by them except in one instance. This was 

 in the autumn of 1842, as observed in a former part 

 of this work,-)- when the grubs prevailed so as com- 

 pletely to destroy immense patches of the grass, the 

 layer appearing as if burnt, and tearing up in large 

 flakes with the slightest pull. In fact, the field was 

 so denuded in different places, that at one time it 

 was proposed to pare and burn the whole, and lay it 

 down afresh. This was not done, and it proved in 

 the end unnecessary ; for to our surprise the follow- 

 ing year the grass was as green and flourishing as 

 ever, and not a grub was to be seen : yet there was 

 no reason to think these had been devoured by the 

 rooks, which, as before stated, never found them 



* N-aturalist's Calendar, p. 100. t See p. 148. 



