12 Bulletin of the New Yoek State Museum. 



Abundance of the Beetle. 

 The immense numbers in which the insects sometimes congre- 

 gate in seasons of their unusual abundance is so well known that 

 two notices only will be given of such gatherings. ■ A correspondent 

 from Central Maryland has sent me the following paragraph : 



The land seems to be full of them. They lie quiet during the 

 day, but in the night, in the neighborhood and around and among 

 the branches of two weeping willow trees near my house they make 

 a continuous humming noise with their wings, and after the 

 sultry evenings the noise made by them is a continuous roar all 

 through the night. 



In the Rural New Yorker, of July 10, 1886, is the following 

 notice of an extraordinary flight of the beetles : 



An immense swarm of June-bugs settled down on Pekin, Illinois, 

 Monday evening. Millions of them flew against an electric light 

 on a street corner, and were burned to death. Five wagon loads 

 were gathered up afterwards from the ground beneath the lights, 

 and thrown into the Illinois river. 



Life-history. 



When I say that the life-history of this insect is not known, I 

 offer the best reason for our inability to give effectual means for 

 preventing the heavy annual losses that it inflicts upon us. The 

 brief outlines of' a history that are to be found in our entomological 

 reports appear to have no better foundation than a presumed agree- 

 ment with that of the European cockchafer, Melolontha vulgaris — 

 a very poor basis, it may be remarked, for, long as that notorious 

 pest has been known and studied, the knowledge of its transforma- 

 tions is far from complete. Dr. Harris gives no details, but con- 

 tents himself with the very broad statement that " the habits and 

 transformations of the common cockchafer of Europe * * * 

 will serve to exemplify those of the other insects of this family." 

 Even so accurate an observer as Dr. Fitch, thoughtlessly and 

 unwisely, we think, committed himself to the following statement : 

 " Every thing known respecting the history of our May-beetle and 

 its transformations concurs to show that it is exactly analogous to 

 the cockchafer or May-bug of Europe." In truth, the European 

 cockchafer, of whose excessive abundance and ravages at times we 

 have had such graphic accounts, is not closely allied to our May- 

 bug. It belongs to another genus — Melolontha — which is entirely 

 unrepresented in this country. 



