
COLEOPTERA, 453 
In their last year, do they attack also ligneous vegetation. When 
they have gnawed away the lateral roots of a young tree, 
the new shoots corresponding to them dry up. The larva then 
attack the principal root, and thus bring about the death of the 
tree. There will be found round the roots of trees thus attacked 
Immense numbers of these worms. M. Deschiens relates that he 
had seen six hectares of acorns, sown three times in the space of 
five years with a perfect result, entirely destroyed as many times 
by the larva of the cockchafer. A nurseryman of Bourg-la- Reine 
suffered, in 1854, from the ravages of these terrible ieee losses 
which he estimated at thirty indadand francs. Others only pre- 
‘served about a hundredth part of their plants. In Prussia they 
destroyed, in 1835, a considerable nursery of trees in the Institut 
Forestier. In the forest of Kolbetz more than a thousand measures 
of wild pines were destroyed in the same way. 
We shall not, then, be surprised to learn that the thunders of 
excommunication were formerly launched at the cockchafers, as 
they were also at the caterpillars and the locusts. We do not know 
‘whether this had much impression upon them, In 1479, the cock- 
chafers having occasioned a famine in the country, were cited 
before the ecclesiastical tribunal of Lausanne. The advocate 
‘Fribourg, who defended them, did not find, doubtlessly, in the 
resources of his eloquence arguments powerful enough in their 
favour ; for the tribunal, after mature deliberation, condemned the 
accused troop, and sentenced them to be banished from the terri- 
tory. But it is not enough to pass a sentence, there must also be 
the means of putting it in execution; and these were wanting to 
the tribunal of Lausanne. And so the condemned cockchafers con- 
tinued to live on Swiss land, without appearing mindful of the 
condemnation which had been fulminated against them. 
The larve of the cockchafer are not easily destroyed. They 
successfully resist those scourges which one fancies must harm 
them. Thus the inundation which devastated the banks of the 
Saone, fifteen years ago, had no effect on them. The land and 
meadows, which had remained for from four to five weeks under 
water, were none the more rid of them. ‘The only circum- 
stance which is really hurtful to them, and to the adult cock- 
chafer, is late frost in the months of April and May. When 






























