COLEOPTERA. 453 



in their last year, do they attack also ligneous vegetation. When 

 they have gnawed away the lateral roots of a young tree, 

 the new shoots corresponding to them dry up. The larvae then 

 attack the principal root, and thus bring about the death of the 

 tree. There will be found round the roots of trees thus attacked 

 immense numbers of these worms. M. Deschiens relates that he 

 had seen six hectares of acorns, sown three times in the space of 

 five years with a perfect result, entirely destroyed as many times 

 by the larva of the cockchafer. A nurseryman of B our g- la- Heine 

 suffered, in 1854, from the ravages of these terrible larvae, losses 

 which he estimated at thirty thousand francs. Others only pre- 

 served about a hundredth part of their plants. In Prussia they 

 destroyed, in 1835, a considerable nursery of trees in the Institut 

 Forestier. In the forest of Kolbetz more than a thousand measures 

 of wild pines were destroyed in the same way. 



We shall not, then, be surprised to learn that the thunders of 

 excommunication were formerly launched at the cockchafers, as 

 they were also at the caterpillars and the locusts. We do not know 

 whether this had much impression upon them. In 1479, the cock- 

 chafers having occasioned a famine in the country, were cited 

 before the ecclesiastical tribunal of Lausanne. The advocate 

 Fribourg, who defended them, did not find, doubtlessly, in the 

 resources of his eloquence arguments powerful enough in their 

 favour ; for the tribunal, after mature deliberation, condemned the 

 accused troop, and sentenced them to be banished from the terri- 

 tory. But it is not enough to pass a sentence, there must also be 

 the means of putting it in execution ; and these were wanting to 

 the tribunal of Lausanne. And so the condemned cockchafers con- 

 tinued to live on Swiss land, without appearing mindful of the 

 condemnation which had been fulminated against them. 



The larvae of the cockchafer are not easily destroyed. They 

 successfully resist those scourges which one fancies must harm 

 them. Thus the inundation which devastated the banks of the 

 Saone, fifteen years ago, had no effect on them. The land and 

 meadows, which had remained for from four to five weeks under 

 water, were none the more rid of them. The only circum- 

 stance which is really hurtful to them, and to the adult cock- 

 chafer, is late frost in the months of April and May. When 



