214 
XATUBAL HISTORY OF 
MELOLONTHA FULLO. 
PLATE XV. Fig. 3 and 4. 
Scarabaeus Fullo, Linn. — Donovan's Brit. Insects, iv. pi. 11*2, 
The genus Melolontha,* of which the common 
Cockchafer affords a familiar example, has anten- 
nae consisting of ten joints, with five or seven of the 
uppermost produced into thin leaflets in the male, 
while in the females only four (sometimes six) are 
a little produced. All the claws are of equal size, 
and terminate in a simple point, with a small tooth 
on the under side near the base. As constituted 
by the older Entomologists, it formed a very exten- 
sive genus; but in its present restricted acceptation, 
it scarcely includes more than a dozen species. Of 
these, by far the most common is M. vulgaris {com- 
mon Cockchafer ), which occurs abundantly in many 
parts of England, Ireland, and the Continent, but is 
comparatively rare in Scotland.-)- The perfect insect 
* The term is derived from pnXi a, an apple-tree, and 
avQyjms, a flowering or inflorescence , because the insects it an- 
ciently denoted, either were supposed to be produced from 
the flowers of fruit-trees, or were accustomed to resort to 
them for food. 
•f* The common cockchafer sometimes abounds in Dum- 
friesshire : many hundreds of the grubs were turned up 
while digging the foundation of the Mansion-house of 
Jardine Hall — Ed. 
