IXSEGT8 AND VERMES. 
343 
in motion, and playing about over his head. This noise was 
heard last week, on June 28th. 
" Kesounds the living surface of the ground, 
Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum 
To him who muses at noon." 
" Thick in yon stream of light a thousand ways, 
Upward and downward, thwarting and convolved, 
The quivering nations sport." Thomson's Seasons. 
CHAFERS. 
Cockchafers seldom abound oftener than once in three or 
four years ; when they swarm they deface the trees and 
hedges. Whole woods of oaks are stripped bare by them. 
Chafers are eaten by the turkey, the rook, and the house 
sparrow. 
The 8carahceus solstitialis first appears about June 26 ; 
they are very punctual in their coming out every year. 
They are a small species, about half the size of the May 
chafer, and are known in some parts by the name of the fern 
chafer.^ 
PTINUS PECTINICORNIS. 
Those maggots that make worm holes in tables, chairs, 
bedposts, &c., and destroy wooden furniture, especially where 
there is any sap, are the larvae of the Ptinus pectinicornis . 
This insect, it is probable, deposits its eggs on the surface, 
and the worms eat their way in. 
In their holes they turn into their pupa state, and so come 
forth winged in July ; eating their way through the valances 
or curtains of a bed, or any other furniture that happens to 
obstruct their passage. 
^ A singular circumstance relative to the cockchafer, or, as it is called 
here, the May-bug, ScarabcBus melolontha, happened this year (1800) : — 
My gardener in digging some ground found, about six inches under 
the surface, two of these insects alive and perfectly formed so early 
the 24th of March. When he brought them to me, they appeared tt 
be as perfect and as much alive as in the midst of summer, crawling 
about as briskly as ever : yet I saw no more of this insect till the 22nd 
of May, when it began to make its appearance. How comes it, that 
though it was perfectly formed so early as the 24th of March, it did not 
show itself above ground till nearly two months afterwards ? — Mark wick- 
