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HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. LPackard. 
During the latter part of May and early in June in New 
England, namely, for about a month, the beetle flies about at 
night, being most active in warm, damp weather, especially 
before thunder storms, a period when most insects are 
restless. 
By day our beetle in its sober garb of chestnut-brown hides 
in the foliage of trees, especially the apple, clinging to the 
under side of the leaves by its long curved claws, which are 
admirably adapted for the purpose. During winter the grub 
descends below the reach of frost, and at the approach of 
warm spring weather wriggles up towards the surface. 
The European Cockchafer has much the same habits as 
our May-chafer, and when we say that in 1866 the grubs of 
the Cockchafer destroyed in the department of the lower 
Seine over $5,000,000 worth of garden vegetables, we fear 
we are prophesying a state of things that may ensue in 
America when our population becomes as densely crowded 
as in the old countries of Europe. 
M. Reiset (see “American Naturalist,” vol. ii, 209) says 
that this insect is three years in arriving at its perfect beetle 
state. The larvae (grubs) hatched from eggs laid by the 
beetles which appeared in 1865 passed a second winter, that 
of 1867, at a mean depth in the soil of nearly a foot and a 
half. The thermometer placed in the ground (which was 
covered with snow) at this mean depth never rose to the 
zero point (or 32° Fahr.) of the Centigrade thermometer, as 
minimum . Thus the larvae survived after being perfectly 
frozen (probably most subterranean larvae are thus frozen 
and thawed out in the spring). “In June, 1867, the grubs 
having become full-fed, made their way upwards to a mean 
distance of about thirteen inches below the surface, where, 
in less than two months, they all changed to the pupa state, 
and in October and November the perfect beetle appeared. 
* * * * The i mma ture larvae, warned by the approaching 
cold, began to migrate deep down in the soil in October, 
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