98 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. ; 
punish us, or to teach us thankfulness to the great Arbiter of our fate, 
the insects that feed upon the grass of our pastures were to become as 
generally numerous as they are occasionally permitted to do. One of the 
worst of these ravagers is the grub of the common cockchafer (Melolontha 
vulgaris). This insect, which is found to remain in the/arva state four years, 
sometimes destroys whole acres of grass, as I can aver from my own ob- 
servation. It undermines the richest meadows, and so loosens the turf 
that it will roll up as if cut with a turfing-spade. These grubs did so much 
injury about seventy years ago to a poor farmer near Norwich, that the 
court of that city, out of compassion, allowed him 25/., and the man and 
his servant declared that he had gathered eighty bushels of the beetle.? 
In the year 1785 many provinces of France were so ravaged by them, that 
a premium was offered by the government for the best mode of destroying 
them. They do not confine themselves to grass, but eat also the roots of 
corn; and it is to feast upon this grub more particularly that the rooks 
follow the plough.? 
The larva also of another species of a cognate genus (Hoplia pulveru- 
lenta) is extremely destructive in moist meadows, rooting under the herb- 
age, so that, the soil becoming loose, the grass soon withers and dies, 
Swine are very fond of these grubs, and will devour vast numbers of them, 
and the rooks lend their assistance. 
~~ Amongst the Lepidoptera, the greatest enemy of our pastures is the 
Chareas Graminis, which, however, is said not to touch the foxtail grass, 
In the years 1740, 1741, 1742, 1748, 1749, they multiplied so prodigiously 
and committed such ravages in many provinces of Sweden, that the mea- 
dows became quite white and dry, as if a fire had passed over them.® This 
destructive insect, though found in this country, is luckily scarce amongst 
us ; but our northern neighbours appear occasionally to have suffered 
greatly from it. In 1759, and again in 1802, the high sheep farms in 
Tweeddale were dreadfully infested by a caterpillar, which was probably 
the larva of this moth; spots of a mile square were totally covered by 
them, and the grass devoured to the root. In 1835, the larvee of this 
moth so infested some districts in Bohemia, that Prince Clary, by em- 
ploying two hundred men for four and a half days, collected twenty-three 
bushels, computed to contain four and a half millions of caterpillars.® 
Grasses, both natural and artificial, are attacked by the larvae of several 
species of beetles. Those of Coccinella impunctata (which with C, Angus 
Scriba, and other species, live on vegetable food) destroy, in Germany, 
sainfoin, clover, and tares; those of Colaspis barbara, in Spain, whole fields 
of lucerns (Medicago sativa®); and those of Galleruca Tanaceti, natural 
pasturage, having greatly injured that of Mount Jura in Switzerland in 
1 Philos, Trans. 1741. 581. 
2 There would seem to be a prospect of cockchafers being made in some degree to 
repay the previous injury they cause, if the statement in the newspapers (June, 
1841) be correct, that M. Breard, mayor of Honfleur in France, and proprietor of 
an oil-mill, having offered one france per bushel for cockchafers, procured seventeen 
bushels, from which he obtained twenty-eight quarts of good lamp-oil, A kind of 
grease has also lately been made from them in Hungary. 
5 De Geer, ii. 341. Amen. Acad. iii. 355. 
4 Farmer’s Mag. iii. 487. 
5 Kéllar on Ins. injurious to Gardeners, &c. 105. 126. 
6 Dufour, Ann, Soc. Ent. de France, vy. 872. 
