734 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



\_G. pyreiKBiis, Chai'p. The record, CuslieiiduiL ('90 J. 2), requii-es 

 confii'ination, as the specimen from "^hich it was made cannot be 

 traced.] 



Trox scaber, L. 

 LErysxEE. ]liIrxsTEE. 

 Dublin (Dundi'um, '00 Ht. 3).— Cork (Fg. jJS.). 



Serica brunnea, L. 



TJlSTEE. Co>':N"ArGHT. LeIXSTEE. Mr^S'STEK. 



Common. 



Melolontba vulgaris, F. 



TJlSTEE. CoisTfAU&HT. LeINSTEE. 3ItJ]S'STEE. 



Common, in wooded districts. The following interesting account 

 of a plague of beetles which yisited the west of Ireland, in the summer 

 of 1688, occurs in ^-'Boate's " iN'atui-al History of Ireland." The 

 description — contributed by Dr. T. jMolineux — is accompanied by an 

 excellent figure of the Common Cockchaier {Melolontha vulgaris) : — 

 " The first time great numbers of these insects were taken notice 

 of . . . was in the year 1688. They appear'd on the south-west 

 coast of the county of Galloicay^ brought tither by a south-west wind. 

 . . . From thence they made their way into the more inland 

 parts . . . multitudes of them shew'd themselves among the trees and 

 hedges in the day time, hanging by the boughs, thousands together in 

 clusters, sticking to the back one of another, as is the manner of bees 

 when they swarm . . . they continued quiet with little or no motion 

 dui'ing the heat of the sun, but towards evening or sunset, they would 

 all rise, disperse, and fly about, with a strange humming noise, much 

 like the beating of di'ums at some distance, and in such vast incredible 

 numbers, that they darkened the air for the space of two or three 

 miles square. ... A short while after their conung, they had so 

 entii'ely eat up and destroy'd all the leaves of the trees for some miles 

 round about, that the whole country, tho' it was the middle of simimer, 

 was left as bare and naked as if it had been in the depth of winter, 

 making a most unseemly and indeed fiightful appearance . . . the 

 grinding of the leaves in the mouths of this vast multitude all 

 together, made a sound very much resembling the sawing of timber. 

 . . . iS'or did the mischievous effects of this pernicious vermin stop 



* " A Natural History of Ireland." By Dr. Gerard Boate, Thomas Molineux, 

 M.D., F.R.S., and others. Dublin. 1755. 



