Grub of Cockchafer. 277 



February ; but it is then as soft as it was whilst still a grub, 

 and does not acquire its hardness and colour for ten or twelve 

 days, nor does it venture above ground before May, in the 

 fourth year from the time of its hatching. At this time, the 

 beetles may be observed issuing from their holes in the 

 evening, and dashing themselves about in the air as if blind. 



During the three summers then of their existence in the 

 grub state, these insects do immense injury, burrowing 

 between the turf and the soil, and devouring the roots of 

 grass and other plants ; so that the turf may easily be rolled 

 off, as if cut by a turfing spade, while the soil underneath for 

 an inch or more is turned into soft mould like the bed of a 

 garden. Mr. Anderson, of Norwich, mentions having seen 

 a whole field of fine flourishing grass so undermined by these 

 grubs, that in a few weeks it became as dry, brittle, and 

 withered as hay.* Bingley also tells us that " about sixty 

 years ago, a farm near Norwich was so infested with cock- 

 chafers, that the farmer and his servants affirmed they gathered 

 eighty bushels of them ; and the grubs had done so much 

 injury, that the court of the city, in compassion to the poor 

 fellow's misfortune, allowed him twenty-five pounds."f In 

 the year 1785, a farmer, near Blois, in France, employed a 

 number of children and poor persons to destroy the cock- 

 chafers at the rate of two liards a hundred, and in a few 

 days they collected fourteen thousand.J 



" I remember," says Salisbury, " seeing in a nursery near 

 Bagshot, several acres of young forest trees, particularly 

 larch, the roots of which were completely destroyed by it, so 

 much so that not a single tree, was left alive." We are 

 doubtful, however, whether this was the grub of the cock- 

 chafer, and think it more likely to have been that of the 

 green rose-beetle (Cetonia aurata), which feeds on the roots of 

 trees. 



* Phil. Trans., vol. xliv. p. 579. f Anim. Biog., vol. iii. p. 233. 



J Anderson's Recr. in Agricult., vol. iii. p. 420. Hints, p. 74. 



