1838. HOUSE—No. 72. 69 
fowls. The perfect insect is devoured by some nocturnal animal, 
which frequents our gardens for that purpose, and whose beneficial 
foraging is detected by its abundant excrement filled with the wing- 
cases of the Melolontha. A writer in the ‘‘ New York Evening 
Post” says, that the beetles, which frequently commit serious ravages 
on the fruit trees, may be effectually exterminated by shaking them 
from the tree every evening. In this way two pails full of beetles 
were collected on the first experiment ; the number caught regularly 
decreased until the fifth evening, when only two beetles were to be 
found. 
JM. hirsuta is also found occasionally in gardens. 
MM. balia is more common in forests. 
JM. pilosicollis is quite common in gardens. 
WM. variolosa is one of our finest species as regards beauty and size. 
It is not common. An individual was captured near the mall in 
Boston, some years ago. 
M. vespertina and JW. sericea are destructive to the naturalized 
sweet-briar, on which the perfect insects may be found in profusion 
in the night, about the last of June. } 
All these species are nocturnal insects, never appearing except by 
accident in the day, during which they remain under shelter of the 
foliage of trees, or concealed in the grass. Others are truly day- 
fliers, committing their ravages by the light of the sun, and are al- 
ways present to our observation. One of them appears about the 
middle of May, and may be found till the end of June. 
Tt eats the tender leaves of the pear-tree, and feeds also on those 
of the poplar and oak. It is a large insect, and was described by 
Linneus as the Scarabeus lanigerus. It is not constant in its ap- 
pearance ; in some seasons being found in great profusion, when, by 
shaking the young pear-trees, any number of them may be obtained. 
Melolontha punctata is also a large species which is frequent on the 
grape vine in July and August. JV. varians, a smaller species, ap- 
propriated to the cultivated and wild grape vine, is closely allied to 
the vine-chaffer of France, but fortunately, its ravages are not as yet 
so extensive as those of the latter. On these vines, and still more 
profusely on the Sumach, (Rhus Typhinum), it feeds during the 
months of June and July. The rose-chaffer or rose-bug, as it is 
