28S 
OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 
motion, and playing about over his head last. This noise was heard 
week, on June 28 th. 
' ' Resounds 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 convolv'd, 
The quivering nations sport." — Thomson's Seasons. 
W^HITE. 
CHAFFEES. ' 
Cockchaffers 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. 
Chaffers are eaten by the turkey, the rook, and the house-sparrow. 
The scarabceus solstitialis first appears about June 26th : they are 
very punctual in their coming out every year. They are a small 
species, about half the size of the May-chaffer, and are known in some 
parts by the name of the fern-chaffer. — White. 
A singular circumstance relative to the cockchaffer, or as it is called 
here, the May-bug, scarabceus melolontha, happened this year (1800) : 
My gardener, in digging some 
ground, found, about six inches 
under the surface, two of these in- 
sects alive and perfectly formed, so 
early as the 24tli of March. When 
he brought them to me, they ap- 
peared to 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 March, it did not show itself above ground 
till nearly two months afterwards 1 — Maekwick. 
COCKCHAFFER. 
PTINUS PECTINICOENIS. 
Those maggots that make worm-holes in tables, chairs, bed-posts, 
&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 pupas state, and so come forth 
* These insects will attack various woods, but beech and the American black 
birch are those soonest attacked by anobium striatum. They are also extremely 
prevalent in the roofing or timbers of cot-houses, constructed of British grown 
Scotch pine, which in a few years they will almost reduce to powder. 
