CETONHD^ — ROSE-CHAFERS. 49 



these immense numbers, they had so entirely eaten up and 

 destroyed the leaves of the trees, that the whole country, 

 for miies around, thoug-h in the middle of summer, was left 

 as bare as in the depth of winter. 



During the unfavorable seasons of the weather, which 

 followed this plague, the swine and poultry w^ould watch 

 under the trees for the falling of the beetles, and feed and 

 fatten upon them ; and even the poorer sort of the country 

 people, the country then laboring under a scarcity of pro- 

 vision, had a way of dressing them, and lived upon them 

 as food. In 1695, Ireland was again visited with a plague 

 of this same kind.^ 



In Normandy, according to Mouffet, the Cock-chafers 

 make their appearance every third year.^ In 1785, many 

 provinces of France were so ravaged by them, that a pre- 

 mium was offered by the government for the best mode of 

 destroying them.^ During this year, a farmer, near Blois, 

 employed a number of children and the poorer people to 

 destroy the Cock-chafers at the rate of two liards a hun- 

 dred, and in a few days they collected fourteen thousand.* 



The county of Norfolk in England seems occasionally to 

 have suffered much from the ravages of these insects ; and 

 Bingley tells us that "about sixty years ago, a farm near 

 Norwich was so infested with them, that the farmer and his 

 servants affirmed they had 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, al- 

 lowed him tw^enty-five pounds."^ 



The seeming blunders and stupidity of these insects have 

 long been proverbial, as in the expressions, "blind as a 

 beetle," and "beetle-headed." 



Oetoniidse — Rose-chafers. 



A very pretty species of the Cetoniidae, the Agestrata 

 luconica, is of a fine brilliant metallic green, and found in 



1 Phil. Tram. Abridg., ii. 782. 



2 Shaw, Zool, vi. 25. 



3 Kirb. and Sp. Introd., i. 179. 



* Anderson's Recr. in Agric, iii. 420. 

 ^ Antm. Biog., iii. 233. 



