284 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 
HUMMING IN THE AIR. 
There is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the highest 
part of our down in hot summer days, which always amuses me 
much, without giving me any satisfaction with respect to the 
cause of it ; and that is a loud audible humming of bees in the 
air, though not one insect is to be seen. This sound is to be 
heard distinctly the whole common through, from the Money- 
dells, to Mr. White's avenue gate. Any person would suppose 
that a large swarm of bees was in motion, and playing about 
over his head. This noise was hsard last week, on June 28th. 
" 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. 
CHAFFERS. 
CocKCHAFFERS Seldom abound oftener than once in three or four 
years ; when they swarm, they deface the tree^ and hedges. 
Whole woods of oaks are stripped bare by them. 
Chaffers are eaten by the turkey, the rook, and the house- 
sparrow.f 
The scarahcBus 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-chafFer, and are 
known in some parts by the name of the fern-chaffer.]: 
* The exact site whence the humming proceeds is often indicated by a concourse of hungry 
swallows. — Ed. j^, 
t A young sparrow which I picked up in \x\y garden, and placed in a cage, for the purpose of 
ascertaining what food would be brought to it by its parents, was almost wholly fed on these 
insects. — Er>. 
t A singular circumstance relative to the coekchafFer, or as it is called here the May-bug, 
scarahaui melolontha, happened this year (1800) : My gardener in digging some ground found, 
about six inches above the surface, tw« of these insects alive and perfectly formed so early as the 
'J4th of March. When he brought them to me, they appeared to be as perfect and as much alive 
as in the midst of summer, crawling about as briskly as ever ; yet 1 saw no more of this insect 
till the 22d 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 ?— Makkwick. 
