48 MELOLONTHIDiE — COCK- CHAFERS. 



which arisos from its beinr:: replete with food), they affirm it 

 will be mild, but on the contrary if it be white, the weather 

 will be severe : and they carry this so far as to foretell, that 

 if the anterior be white and the posterior blue, the cold will 

 be most severe at the beginning of the winter. Hence they 

 call this grub Bemdrkehe-mask — prognostic worm.^ 



An absurd notion obtains in England that the larvae of 

 the May-bugs are changed into briers.^ 



The following quotation is from the Chronicle of Hol- 

 lingshed: "The 24 day of Februarie j[1575), being the 

 feast of Saint Matthie, on which dai the faire was kept at 

 Tewkesburie, a strange thing happened there. For after a 

 floud which was not great, but such as therby the medows 

 neere adioning were covered with water, and in the after 

 noone there came downe the river of Seuerne great numbers 

 of flies and beetles {Melolonllia vulgaris'^), such as in sum- 

 mer evenings use to strike men in the face, in great heapes, 

 a foot thicke above the water, so that to credible mens 

 judgement there were seene within a paire of buts length of 

 those flies above a hundred quarters. The mils there 

 abouts were dammed up with them for the space of foure 

 dales after, and then were clensed by digging them out 

 with shovels : from whence they came is yet unknowne but 

 the dale was cold and a hard frost. "^ 



Such another remarkable phenomenon is recorded to 

 have occurred in Ireland, in the summer of 1688. The 

 Cock-chafers, in this instance, were in such immense num- 

 bers, "that when," as the chronicler, Dr. Molyneux, relates, 

 "towards evening or sunset, they would arise, disperse, 

 and fly about, with a strange humming noise, much like 

 the beating of drums at some distance ; and in such vast 

 incredible numbers, that they darkened the air for the space 

 of two or three miles square. The grinding of leaves," he 

 continues, "in the mouths of this vast multitude altogether, 

 made a sound very much resembling the sawing of timber."* 



In a short time after the appearance of these beetles in 



1 De Geer, iv. 275-6. Kirb and Sp. Introd., i. 33. 



2 Hist, of Ins. (Murray, 1830) ii. 296. 



2 Chronicles, iv. 326. — The water overflowing the low grounds 

 brought the beetles for air to the surface, whence they were swept 

 away by the current. 



* Fhil. Trans. Abridg., ii. 781-3. 



