THE COCKCHAFER 



29 



roots of a great variety of plants. In England it occasionally 

 attracts attention by the injury which it does to grass-land. 

 Patches of grass turn brown and die. On digging, large, dirty- 

 white, sluggish larvae are discovered, which are those of the 

 cockchafer. The pupa lies deeper in the ground, and is only 

 to be procured during a few weeks at the end of autumn. 

 Having procured a supply of larvae, we remark the soft texture, 

 the whitish colour, arid the large size. It is usual in insects 

 that the maximum size is attained at the end of the larval 

 or feeding-stage. Some shrinkage takes place during pupation, 

 and the imago is still smaller than the pupa. The larva of the 

 cockchafer is not far from being twice as long as the winged 

 beetle. The head is horny, and 

 bears strong, dark-coloured jaws ; 

 there are three pairs of legs. 

 The abdomen is enlarged, espe- 

 cially behind, and curved into a 

 semicircle. Spiracles, bordered 

 with dull red, are conspicuous on 

 every segment except the second, 

 third, and last. They are often 

 wanting on these particular seg- 

 ments of an insect-larva. Per- 

 haps their formation is interfered 

 with by the development of wings 

 in the hinder thoracic segments, 

 and of the reproductive apparatus 

 at the end of the abdomen. In 

 the imago, however, the wing-bearing segments are furnished 

 with large spiracles, while the prothorax, which never bears 

 wings, is always devoid of spiracles, a fact which shakes 

 our confidence in the supposed explanation. The thoracic 

 segments of the larva bear each a pair of rather long legs, 

 in which we can recognise the coxa, trochanter, femur, tibia, 

 and one-jointed tarsus, the last being armed with a single 

 claw. The dorsal plate of the prothorax is subdivided into 

 two, those of the mesothorax, metathorax, and first six ab- 

 dominal segments into three. The next two segments are 

 undivided, while the last of all, which is enormous in com- 

 parison with any of the rest, appears to be double. On ex- 

 amining the head of the larva more closely, we see that there 



Fig, 21. 

 Larva of cockchafer. 



