86 Insect Life : Its Why and Wherefore 
particular as to diet, which is all of a 
vegetarian nature. The oak, poplar, 
beech, elm, fruit trees, black thorn, the 
garden rose, and wheat, they have been 
found feeding upon. They have apparently 
been well equipped for their work upon 
the trees by being provided with insatiable 
appetites, and very strong mandibles, to 
say nothing of the hook with which the 
forelegs are armed, which enables them to 
cling with great tenacity to any object 
which they wish. 
Fortunately, however, the duration of 
the cockchafer’s visit, indeed of its life, 
is very short. We have hardly begun to 
grumble about its depredations before it 
is gone as far as the upper world is con- 
cerned, though it does reappear in another 
form elsewhere ; but knowledge of insect 
life is scant, and few care to observe things 
which, though thought small and insig- 
nificant because they belong to small 
creatures, are nevertheless forces to be 
reckoned with, as the farmer sometimes 
finds to his cost. 
After the pairing or mating has taken 
place, the male cockchafers perish. The 
