448 _ THE INSECT WORLD. 
necessary to ensure the propagation of the species. The number 
of eggs which a female lays is from twenty to thirty. With her 
front leg she hollows out a hole in the ground from two to four 
inches in depth, and deposits her eggs, of a yellowish white and 
of the size of hemp-seed, therein. Her instinct leads her to choose 
soft, light, and well-manured soils, which are, at the same time, 
the best ventilated and the most fertile. We may conclude from 
this that cultivation and labour have made the cockchafer more 
common than it was formerly. It is the child of civilisation, the 

Fig. 432.—Larva of the Cockchafer (M/elolontha vulgaris). 
parasite of agriculture. In from four to six weeks after being 
laid, the little larve are hatched (Fig. 432), and immediately 
attack the roots of vegetables. They have a hard and horny head, 
and slender black legs, longer than in other species of Scarabeides. 
Their body is composed of a whitish pulp under a transparent 
skin, the head and the mouth have a reddish tinge. The length 

Fig. 433.—Pupa of the Cockchafer (Melolontha vulgaris). 
of their existence in this state is three, sometimes four years. 
From the egg laid in the month of June is hatched a larva in the 
month of July. It increases in size during the last six months 
of the year, and continues to do so during the two following 
