ON THE LAMELLICORNES. 525 



one's fist, composed of a well sulphured match, surrounded 

 with pitch -rosin, and a slight external layer of yellow wax. 

 When the cock-chafers begin to appear, that is to say, in the 

 months of May and June, the hours are chosen when they 

 remain in a state of repose on the leaves of trees and hedges, 

 which is usually between nine in the morning and three in 

 the afternoon, and the prepared flambeau being lighted, it is 

 paraded underneath and around the trees and hedges, and 

 held under in such a manner that the smoke, mixed with the 

 odours of sulphur, resin, and yellow wax, suffocates the in- 

 sects. It is sufficient to hold it in this manner, going and 

 coming, for about seven minutes and a half, under the places 

 where the cock-chafers have assembled. After this operation 

 the hedges are shaken with sticks, and the fruit trees with 

 crooks, or with the hand, taking care, however, not to suffer 

 the flowers of these trees to fall, for thus the remedy would 

 be worse than the disease. The cock-chafers, half stupified 

 by the heat of the sun, and suffocated by the mingled odours 

 of the flambeau, undergo a sort of lethargy which makes 

 them fall more easily from the trees and hedges in which 

 they were. When they have fallen they are collected toge- 

 ther, placed in a heap upon a handful of straw, and set fire 

 to, to prevent the possibility of their recovery or return ; 

 for this odour of the flambeau does not kill them, and it 

 keeps them in a state of stupefaction scarcely for the space 

 of an hour. 



Second Method. — It has been proposed as a mode of pre- 

 servation against the ravages of the white worms, or the 

 larvae of the cock-chafers, to cause the plough to be followed 

 by children, to gather up in baskets such of these animals as 

 the share might upturn. But, besides that all lands are not 

 tilled at the same time, and that there still remain some in this 

 state at the end of autumn and even during winter, the tracts 

 planted with wood, or thickets, and those in which clover, 



