. Cassell's natural history. Animals; Animal behavior. 328 NATURAL BISTOSY. or twenty days, only in the free, devoui-ing leaves, pairing, and depositing its ova. Like nearly a]l its tribe, it is active only in the twilight hours of evening, concealing itself by day among foliage. In the years when it is abundant it devours the leaves of fruit-trees in gardens and orchards, as well as its favourite elms and oaks, poplars and birch being the last to be attacked. Notwithstanding the attention with which this destructive insect has been studied in France, no definite- means have been discovered of
. Cassell's natural history. Animals; Animal behavior. 328 NATURAL BISTOSY. or twenty days, only in the free, devoui-ing leaves, pairing, and depositing its ova. Like nearly a]l its tribe, it is active only in the twilight hours of evening, concealing itself by day among foliage. In the years when it is abundant it devours the leaves of fruit-trees in gardens and orchards, as well as its favourite elms and oaks, poplars and birch being the last to be attacked. Notwithstanding the attention with which this destructive insect has been studied in France, no definite- means have been discovered of checking its. ravages. Farmers have been reconnnended, as one means of lessening their numbers, tO' plough and hairow their fields in early autumn, when the gi'ubs are closer togethei and lie nearer the surface of the soil, and hand-picking has been suggested, as well as. the encouragement of such useful insectivo- xYLOTKii-Es '"°''* aulmals as the Mole and Shrew-mouse, and the various carnivorous Beetles, such as the Carabi. In the United States of America an allied Beetle [Lachnosterna, qtiercina), called the May-bug, is equally destructive to pasture land, and such is the completeness with which the larvse- , or Goldsmith-beetles, differ from Melolonthince in their much thicker tarsi, the joints* of which are articulated closer together, and in their claws being unequal in size and not divergent. They are mostly Beetles of polished metallic integuments, and diurnal in their habits, the strength of the legs and the form of their bodies enabling them to cling firmly to the leaves of trees when not on the wing. One lai-ge section of the group may be known by the membranous border of their wing-cases. To these belongs the genus Aiiomala, of which about two hundred species are known from various parts of the world, one {A. frischii) being a well-known British Beetle. Some of the large tropical American Rutelidce are amongst the most brilliantly-coloured Beetles
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