The Cockchafer . 
399 
others. Of this last, by which he evidently means the 
common cockchafer, he writes :— 
“ The tree beetle is very common, and every where to be met with 
especially in the moneths of July and August, after sun-set: for then it 
flyeth giddily in mens faces with a great humming and loud noise, and 
vexeth cattel. These beetles spoil the leaves of trees, which they do 
not so much eat as tear in pieces out of an inbred malice; for they feed 
upon gnats. We call them dorrs in English; the Dutchmen, baum - 
kafer, loiiblcaefer ; Agricola, l. de subterr. anim. seukaefer; the French, 
Jiannetons. The sheaths of their wings are of a light red colour, and 
covered as it were with a very fine flower, otherwise they shine but a 
little; their legs, feet, and prickly tail are of the same colour : its other 
parts are all over brown: only that the circle about their eyes, and 
their little horns are yellowish, and of the same colour are they a little 
above the beginning of their tail, the joynts of their bellies are whitish. 
In Normandy they are much more numerous every third year, and 
therefore they call it Van des Jiannetons. It is recorded in our Chron¬ 
icles, that in the year of our Lord 1574, on the 24 of February there 
fell such a multitude of them into the river Severn, that they stopt and 
clog’d the wheels of the water-mils : and indeed, unless together with 
the industry of men, the hens, ducks, goat-milkers, castrels, bats, and 
other birds of prey (which seem to make these their dainties) had 
afforded their help, the mills had even to this day been choaked and 
stood still.” ( Theater of Insects, p. 1014.) 
Ben Jonson has many references to the desultory 
uncertain flight of the chafer or dor, and to the blind 
way in which it frequently dashes itself against the face 
of a pedestrian or any other obstacle. He uses the verb 
to dor in the sense of to mock, to outwit:— 
“ Abroad with Thomas! Oh, that villian dors me, 
He hath discovered all unto my wife.” 
(Every Man in His Humour , iv. 6.) 
“ What should I care what every dor doth buz.” 
( Cynthia's Bevels , iii. 2.) 
Skakspeare’s allusion to “ the shard-borne beetle with 
his drowsy hums ” ( Macbeth , iii. 2, 42) has provoked some 
controversy. Robert Patterson, in his Natural History of 
Insects mentioned in Shakspeare’s Flays , 1842, inclines to 
