DAMAGE CAUSED BY ANIMALS. 161 



As a beetle, this insect feeds on the leaves and flowers of most 

 trees of the broad-leaved species, particularly on the foliage of 

 Oak, Beech, Maple, Sycamore, Horse Chestnut, Willows and 

 Poplars, whilst among conifers it confines its attention mainly to 

 the soft tufts of needles of the Larch, and to the male flowers of 

 the Pine. During years in which it swarms in large numbers, 

 whole woods of broad-leaved trees may often be seen almost or 

 even entirely denuded of foliage, but as these are able to replace, 

 although perhaps only partially, their leafy crowns by means of 

 the midsummer-shoots or summer flush of leaves, the damage is 

 practically confined merely to loss of increment for the time 

 being. 1 



Commencing from the second year, as a grub, it devours 

 the tender rootlets of all kinds of plants, especially the roots 

 of perennial grasses and weeds containing rich stores of reserves, 

 and also the roots of young coniferous seedlings, so that young 

 plants of the latter species quickly die off, whilst older plants are 

 at least interfered with in the vigour of their development. In 

 seed-beds, which from their light porous soil offer special 

 attractions to the female beetle when laying her eggs, and on 

 extensive falls of Scots Pine on soils of a class also favourable to 

 the most suitable conditions of ovi-deposition, grubs have been 

 known to occasion an extraordinary amount of damage. Hence 

 the cockchafer may well be reckoned as decidedly belonging to 

 the most dangerous class of injurious forest insects. 



The devastations which have been, and are still, caused by the 

 grubs in some of the extensive Scots Pine plantations, in Northern 

 Germany in particular, are on a vast scale ; so much so, indeed, that in 

 some localities sylvicultural operations have had to be suspended, 

 whilst in other parts, instead of having well-grown thickets in full 

 canopy, the best results of infinite trouble and patient labour are 

 patchy crops of branching and badly-developed pole-forest. 



Endeavours can be made to obviate such disasters by not 



1 That is to say, the damage is apparently confined to temporary loss of increment 

 only. But as a matter of fact, after total destruction of the spring flush of leaves, a 

 summer flush can only replace them by means of the utilisation of the reserve supplies 

 of nutriment so much more richly stored up in broad-leaved trees than in the ever- 

 green conifers (the deciduous Larch is better endowed in this respect than Pines, 

 Spruce, or Silver Fir). Until, therefore, these starchy reserves have been replaced by 

 a surplus of nutrient matter over the actual requirements of each tree for structural 

 and functional purposes, the original status quo ante cannot possibly be attained as 

 regards either general vigour in growth or wood -producing capacity. Trans. 



