446 THE INSECT WORLD. 
heavy and sustained only for a short time together, is, that they 
are obliged to inflate themselves like balloons in order to rise 
into the air. It is a peculiarity which they share with the migra- 
tory locust. Before taking its flight, the cockchafer agitates its 
wings for some minutes, and inflates its abdomen with air. The 
French children, who perceive this manceuvre, say then that the 
cockchafer ‘‘compte ses écus”’ (is counting its money), and they 
sing to it this refrain, which has been handed down for many 
generations :— 
*¢Hanneton, vole, vole, 
Va-t’eu a Vécole.”’ 
A variation which we hear in the western provinces of France 
is the following :— 
* Barbot, vole, vole; vole, 
Ton pére est a l’ecole 
Qui m’a dit, si tu ne voles, 
I] te coupera la gorge 
Avec un grand couteau de Saint-George.’” 
During the day the cockchafers remain under the leaves in a 
state of perfect immobility; for the heat which gives activity to 
other insects, seems, on the contrary, to stupefy them, and it is 
during the night only that they devour the leaves of elms, poplars, 
oaks, beech, birch trees, &c. In years when their number is not 
very great, one hardly perceives the damage done by them; but 
at certain periods they appear in innumerable legions, and then 
whole parts of gardens or woods are stripped of their verdure, 
and present, in the middle of the summer, the appearance of a 
winter landscape. The trees thus stripped do not in general die; 
but they recover their former vigour with difficulty, and, in the 
case of orchard trees, remain one or two years without bearing 
fruit. It is principally the trees skirting woods, and situated 
along cultivated fields, which are exposed to the ravages of the 
cockchafer, because the larvee of these insects are developed in the 
fields. In the interior of forests they are never met with in great 
numbers. 
In certain years cockchafers multiply in such a frightful manner 
that they devastate the whole vegetation of a country. In the 
