93 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



punish us, or to teach us thankfulness to the great Arbiter of our fate, 

 the insects that feed upon the grass of our pastures were to become as 

 generally numerous as they are occasionally permitted to do. One of the 

 worst of these ravagers is the grub of the common cockchafer (Melolontha 

 vulgaris). This insect, which is found to remain in the larva state four years, 

 sometimes destroys whole acres of grass, as I can aver from my own ob- 

 servation. Jt undermines the richest meadows, and so loosens the turf 

 that it will roll up as if cut with a turfi ng-spade. These grubs did so much 

 injury about seventy years ago to a poor farmer near Norwich, that the 

 court of that city, out of compassion, allowed him 25/., and the man and 

 his servant declared that he had gathered eighty bushels of the beetle. 1 

 In the year 1785 many provinces of France were so ravaged by them, that 

 a premium was offered by the government for the best mode of destroying 

 them. They do not confine themselves to grass, but eat also the roots of 

 corn ; and it is to feast upon this grub more particularly that the rooks 

 follow the plough. 2 



The larva also of another species of a cognate genus (Hoplia pulveru- 

 lenta) is extremely destructive in moist meadows, rooting under the herb- 

 age, so that, the soil becoming loose, the grass soon withers and dies. 

 Swine are very fond of these grubs, and will devour vast numbers of them, 

 and the rooks lend their assistance. 



Amongst the Lepidoptera, the greatest enemy of our pastures is the 

 Charteas Graminis, which, however, is said not to touch the foxtail grass. 

 In the years 1740, 1741, 1742, 1748, 1749, they multiplied so prodigiously 

 and committed such ravages in many provinces of Sweden, that the mea- 

 dows became quite white and dry, as if a fire had passed over them. 3 This 

 destructive insect, though found in this country, is luckily scarce amongst 

 us ; but our northern neighbours appear occasionally to have suffered 

 greatly from it. In 1759, and again in 1802, the high sheep farms in 

 Tweeddale were dreadfully infested by a caterpillar, which was probably 

 the larva of this moth ; spots of a mile square were totally covered by 

 them, and the grass devoured to the root. 4 In 1835, the'larvae of this 

 moth so infested some districts in Bohemia, that Prince Clary, by em- 

 ploying two hundred men for four and a half days, collected twenty-three 

 bushels, computed to contain four and a half millions of caterpillars. 5 



Grasses, both natural and artificial, are attacked by the larvae of several 

 species of beetles. Those of Coccinella impunctata (which with C. Argus 

 Scriba, and other species, live on vegetable food) destroy, in Germany, 

 sainfoin, clover, and tares ; those of Colaspis barbara, in Spain, whole fields 

 of lucerns (Medicago sativa 6 ) ; and those of Galleruca Tanaceti, natural 

 pasturage, having greatly injured that of Mount Jura in Switzerland in 



1 Pldlos. Trans. 1741. 581. 



2 There would seem to be a prospect of cockchafers being made in some degree to 

 repay the previous injury they cause, if the statement in the newspapers (June, 

 1841) be correct, that M. Breard, mayor of Honfleur in France, and proprietor of 

 an oil-mill, having offered one franc per bushel for cockchafers, procured seventeen 

 bushels, from which he obtained twenty-eight quarts of good lamp-oil. A kind of 

 grease has also lately been made from them in Hungary. 



3 De Geer, ii. 341. Amcen. Acad. iii. 355. 



4 Farmer's Mag. iii. 487. 



5 Kollar on Ins. injurious to Gardeners, &c. 105. 126. 



6 Dufour, Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, v. 372. 



