254 
COCK-CHAFER. 
habitation must be useless, the grub is provided 
with a pair of feelers, which serve it to trace its way, 
and to discover any obstacle or danger which it 
may be necessary to avoid. 
After this insect has been an inhabitant of the 
earth for more than three years (during which time 
it has often shifted its skin), it prepares to emerge 
from its dark abode, in a very different form. This, 
however, is not effected in a hurry, but requires 
months to accomplish. About the end of autumn, 
when the grub feels the time approaching for its 
transformation, it prepares for the change by dig- 
ging deep into the earth, sometimes as far as six 
feet below the surface, where it takes some pains to 
form a smooth and capacious tomb, and soon after 
changes into a chrysalis. In this state the insect 
continues all the winter, and about the middle of 
February it again rises into life, and leaves its 
sheath completely winged ; but by no means in a 
state to fly. All the operations of this creature 
seem to be tedious. Other insects, when they 
emerge from their temporary tombs, feel but little 
inconvenience, and are presently enabled to join 
their companions in the air : but this is for a long 
time a helpless animal; and far from at once enjoy- 
ing a state of full perfection, it continues for a time 
feeble and sickly, with hardly power to move, and 
no inclination to eat. All the parts of its body 
continue soft for about a month ; when they begin 
gradually to harden, and in May the insect leaves 
the ground, recovered from its state of imbecility. 
