THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



355 



mid-winter, had not the burning sun, striking through the 

 bare branches, scorched us with his rays. 



The may-btigs often quit the forests in order to attack 

 the fiekls. In 1574 they swarmed so on the coasts of 



"jj^ 







195. Common May-bug — Mclolontha vulgaris, Male, Female, Larva, and Nymph. 



England, that when they fell into the Severn they clogged 

 the wheels of the mills. In a chronicle of 1688 we read 

 that these insects multiplied so fearfully that year in 

 Ireland, that in the county of Galway the air Avas ob- 

 scured, and they swarmed so in the fields that it was 

 difficult to make a path athwart them. 



But its larvte, which the French peasants call mans, 

 cause far more destruction among the forests and crops. 

 They live beneath the surface of the soil where it is diffi- 

 cult to track them, and gnaw the roots of the plants, so 

 that they sometimes totally devastate rich fields. In those 



