GARDEN CHAFER. 
23 
On June 18tli specimens were forwarded by Mr. Simeon Leather, 
Delamere Lodge, near Northwich, Cheshire, with the information that 
the small beetle had that day made its appearance in his Potato-field. 
He observed :—“ The beetles are flying in thousands over the field, 
and are also on the ground in great numbers. They appear to have 
been emerging from holes in the soil.” 
A few days later, on June 30th, the beetles had so far disappeared 
that they were not to be seen in any great numbers together. Grubs 
resembling small Cockchafer grubs had been observed in the same 
field in the previous year, “ when ploughing up the grass-sod for Corn ; 
so no doubt they had then been feeding at the grass-roots.” 
These Chafers are of the shape and size figured at p. 22, and may 
be easily known by the bright green colour of the head and fore body; 
the under part and legs are greenish black, and the wing-cases bright 
tawny. 
The beetles are to be found more or less, and sometimes in great 
numbers, early in the summer, and frequent many kinds of plants. 
I have chiefly seen them on roses, and on grass in park-land ; they do 
damage by eating pollen or flowers, or sometimes resorting to Wheat 
and Oats in corn-fields, and are known under many names. “ Garden 
Chafer ” appears as convenient a name as any, but they are also known 
as “ May Bugs,” which is somewhat confusing with the true Cockchafer; 
“ Bracken Clocks,” from frequenting fern ; likewise as “Bose Beetles”; 
and “ Cliovies.” But it is in the grub-state that they do the most 
harm; and, as I am not aware of any description of their habits so 
full as that of John Curtis’s having been published, I append his 
observations in the accompanying note.* 
* “ The female, having deposited about a hundred eggs in the earth, dies, and 
the larvas hatch and commence their attacks upon the roots of the grass. Although 
they are mischievous in gardens, it is in pasture-lands and lawns that they commit 
the greatest ravages ; by their consuming the roots the grass dies.” .... “ These 
larvas are very similar to those of the Cockchafer, but much smaller; they gene¬ 
rally lie curved up somewhat in the form of a horse-shoe (fig. p. 22) ; yet they are 
rather active, and can walk tolerably well, dragging their heavy bodies after them ; 
they are of an ochreous-white colour, but the head is deep ochreous; . . . . the 
mandibles are somewhat rust-coloured and black at the tips; ... on the breast 
and immediately behind the chin are six longish legs.” ... “ They form cells 
of the surrounding earth at a considerable depth in the soil they inhabit, where 
they undergo their transformation into delicate pale-coloured pupae.”. 
“It is stated that they continue feeding for three years, and they generally 
reside about an inch beneath the turf, but as winter approaches they retire deeper 
into the earth, and even in November, when frost has set in, they have been found 
buried a spade deep. From the large size of most of them at this period I expect 
they are generally full-grown and prepared to enter the pupa-state, for which 
purpose they form cells in the earth, and in all probability remain in that quiescent 
state until the following spring, when the beetles emerge about the time the roses 
flower.”—‘ Farm Insects,’ pp. 221 and 509. 
