228 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS, 



turf may be easily rolled off, as if cut by a turfing 

 spade, while the soil underneath for an inch or more 

 is turned into soft mould like the bed of a garden. 

 Mr Anderson, of Norwich, mentions having seen 

 a whole field of fine flourishing grass so under- 

 mined by these grubs, that in a few weeks it became 

 as dry, brittle, and withered as hay.* Bingley also 

 tells us that ' about sixty years ago, a farm near 

 Norwich was so infested with cockchafers, that the 

 farmer and his servants affirmed they 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, allowed him twenty- 

 five pounds.'! Ii^ the year 1785, a farmer, near 

 Blois, in France, employed a number of children and 

 poor persons to destroy the cockchafers at the rate 

 of two liards a hundred, and in a few days they collect- 

 ed fourteen thousand. J 



' I remember,' says Salisbury, ' seeing, in a nur- 

 sery near Bagshot, several acres of young forest 

 trees, particularly larch, the roots of which were com- 

 pletely destroyed by it, so much so, that not a single 

 tree was left alive. '§ We are doubtful, however, 

 whether this was the grub of the cockchafer, and 

 think it more likely to have been that of the green 

 rose beetle [Cetonia aurata), which feeds on the 

 roots of trees. 



The grub of an allied genus, the midsummer 

 chafer (Zantheumia Solslilialis, Leach), has for the 

 last two years been abundant on Lewisham Hill, 

 Blackheath, doing considerable injury to herbage 

 and garden plants. This beetle may be known from 

 being smaller and paler than the cockchafer, and 

 from its not appearing before midsummer. The grub 

 is very similar. 



♦ Philosoph. Trans, xliv, 579. t Anim. Biog. iii, 233. 



t Anderson's Recr. in Agricult. iii, 420. § Hints, 74. 



