FOOD OF ANIMALS AND BIRDS. 
29 
They frequently enter houses in the night, apparently attract¬ 
ed, as well as dazzled and bewildered, by the lights. Their 
vagaries, in which, without having the power to harm, they 
seem to threaten an attack, have caused them to be called 
dors, — that is, darers ; while their seeming blindness and 
stupidity have become proverbial, in the expressions, ‘‘ blind 
as a beetle,” and “ beetle-headed.” 
Besides the leaves of fruit-trees, they devour those of 
various forest-trees and shrubs, with an avidity not much 
less than that of the locust, so that, in certain seasons, and 
in particular districts, they become an oppressive scourge, 
and the source of much misery to the inhabitants. Mouffet 
relates that, in the year 1574, such a number of them fell 
into the river Severn as to stop the wheels of the water-mills ; 
and, in the Pliilosophical Transactions, it is stated, that in 
the year 1688 they filled the hedges and trees of Galway, 
in such infinite numbers as to cling; to each other like bees 
when swarming ; and, when on the wing, darkened the air, 
annoyed travellers, and produced a sound like distant drums. 
In a short time the leaves of all the trees, for some miles 
round, were so totally consumed by them, that at midsummer 
the country wore the aspect of the depth of winter. 
Another chafer, Anomala vitis F. is sometimes exceedingly 
injurious to the vine. It prevails in certain provinces of 
France, where it strips the vines of their leaves, and also 
devours those of the willow, poplar, and fruit-trees. 
The animals and birds appointed to check the ravages of 
these insects are, according to Latreille, the badger, weasel, 
marten, bats, rats, the common dung-hill fowl, and the goat¬ 
sucker or night-hawk. To this list may be added the com¬ 
mon crow, which devours not only the perfect insects, but 
their larvae, for which purpose it is often observed to follow 
the plough. In Anderson’s Recreations ” it is stated, that 
“ a cautious observer, having found a nest of five young jays, 
remarked that each of these birds, while yet very young, 
consumed at least fifteen of these full-sized grubs in one day. 
