STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
483 
into the ground, where they deposit their eggs, which are about 
thirty in number, whitish, and almost globular. These hatch 
twenty days afterwards, and the little grubs which come from 
them, feed upon whatever tender, juicy roots they find. They 
grow to their full size before winter, and are then three-quarters 
of an inch long, and an eighth broad, of a yellowish white color, 
the head darker, tawny yellow and polished, and with six short 
legs inserted beneath upon the breast. The last segment of their 
bodies is much the largest, bluntly rounded at its end, and is 
turned under£the body. To pass the winter these grubs descend 
in the ground below the reach of frost, and become torpid. When 
warm weather returns they revive and crawl back towards the 
surface, and each worm then forms for itself a pod-like cell of 
a regular oval form, and smooth on its inside. This is made by 
the worm turning round and round in one spot, whereby the 
dirt surrounding it becomes firmly compacted together. In this 
cell it changes to a pupa, which is soft and of the same color as 
the worm, but in shape resembles the beetle, the short wings and 
the horns and legs being traced out upon its surface, enveloped 
in a thin film, which, when the beetle becomes matured, is cast 
off. It then breaks open the earthy pod and digs through the 
ground till it reaches the surface. On its first coming out it is 
found upon the oak and elm before it invades either the wild or 
the garden rose. 
These beetles have several natural enemies. The large dragon¬ 
fly or darning needles, and several other predaceous insects, 
seize and devour numbers of them, whilst the insect-eating birds 
as well as dung-hill fowls have been said to feast and fatten 
upon them. But when they become so excessively multiplied 
as they do in particular districts, these natural enemies are 
unable to produce any material diminution in the myriads which 
are abroad, and it becomes necessary to resort to artificial means 
for destroying them. The only reliable measure for this pur¬ 
pose, yet known, is to gather them day after day by hand, or by 
brushing them into tin vessels of water, and by shaking and 
beating them from trees into sheets spread underneath, and then 
crushing, burning, or scalding them. This beetle is easily 
captured, being sluggish and drone-like in its motions, and a 
