THE COCKCHAFER 31 



two months. The male quickly perishes, but the female 

 enters the ground to lay her eggs. She prefers grass land, 

 or well-manured, open soil. 



Considering their numbers and their voracity, especially 

 in the larval period, it is not surprising that in particular 

 seasons the ravages of the cockchafers should be disastrous. 

 A cold stormy spring sometimes acts as a powerful 

 check. Genial weather in April or May may favour the 

 production, after the usual interval, of great flights of migrat- 

 ing cockchafers. These, though not unknown, are rarely 

 seen in the British Isles. The destruction that they cause 

 is comparable only to that of the locust. As to remedies, the 

 French farmers, whose experience is much more severe than 

 ours, are almost in despair. Hand-picking after ploughing 

 is a practicable, though costly, way of destroying vast numbers. 

 Great poultry-cages, which can be transported from place 

 to place on wheels, have been employed after ploughing 

 with some success. Folding sheep on infested grass land, 

 and feeding them on turnips, is effectual if persisted with 

 long enough. When the cockchafers are resting on the 

 trees, vigorous shaking of the boughs brings them down in 

 great numbers, so that it is possible to collect them in sheets, 

 and sweep them into sacks. None of these remedies, as at 

 present practised, can do more than mitigate the evil, and the 

 P'rench farmer cries out for measures of thorough extermina- 

 tion, which have never been attempted on account of the 

 crushing expense of any adequate remedy. Moles and the 

 larger insectivorous birds, especially the rook, destroy the 

 larvae in great numbers, and there can be no doubt that the 

 slaughter of such animals as these is a sure way of promoting 

 the rava,ges of cockchafers and other insect-pests. 



British insects of habits and appearance somewhat similar 

 'to those of the cockchafer are (i) the Midsummer cockchafer 

 (Rhizotrogus solstitialis), which is only plentiful in the southern 

 counties of England, and makes its appearance with great 

 regularity at the end of June. The beetle is little more than 

 half as long as the cockchafer, and the club of the feeler 

 has only three leaves. (2) The garden chafer (Phyllopertha 

 horticola) is more widely known as a pest in pastures and 

 gardens. Its mode of life and method of feeding are very 

 like those of the cockchafer. In the winged state, it devours 



