THE WHITE-GRUBS. 23 
oak-tree, especially white-oak, the foliage of which they seem 
to prefer, and here they gather in very large numbers and 
their presence is soon indicated by the ragged appearance 
of the foliage of the trees. This time of feeding is followed 
by a love-feast, and numerous pairs will be found mating if 
we goto the trouble of investigating the oak-trees during the 
night. Early in the morning all beetles leave the tree and hide 
in the ground by digging their way into it to the depth of 
one or two inches; here they rest during the day but leave it 
at dusk to repeat their destructive operations for a number 
of nights. Meanwhile the eggs become large and have to be 
disposed of, and for this purpose the females dig their way 
among roots of plants and deposit here and there theselarge 
and almost transparent objects. To obtain such eggs it is 
only necessary to gather a number of beetles and to put 
them ina flower-pot filled with moist and loose soil. A 
large number of eggs are laid, which soon hatch into small 
and almost transparent larve that feed upon the roots of 
many kinds of plants, but especially upon those of grasses. 
These young larve are very tender, and resemble an irregu- 
lar drop of water surrounded by a very delicate skin. As 
they grow older they become whitish, with brown heads 
and legs, and possess the well-known form of the so-called 
white-grubs shown in the illustration (fig. 16, plate 1B b 
After feeding one or two years, according to the species, they 
reach their full size, and now transform into pupe, which 
already indicate in a general way the future form of the 
adult beetles. Here in Minnesota the pupa is formed late in 
summer or early in autumn, and changes soon afterward to 
a beetle, which, however, never leaves the ground until 
spring. Itis not at all uncommon that such beetles are 
plowed up in autumn; when thus exposed they are very 
pale in color and very much softer than in spring, showing 
that they are not yet entirely mature. If exhumed during 
autumn they gradually work their way back into the soil, 
but do so ina very slow and awkward manner, and thus 
are so much exposed in the shallow and poorly made cell 
that they are killed by rain and cold. If the cells they form 
around themselves aslarve for hibernating purposes are not 
