. A treatise on some of the insects injurious to vegetation . Insect pests. 30 COLEOPTERA. and of course would require many more of a smaller size. Say that, on an average of sizes, they consumed twenty apiece, these for the five make one hundred. Each of the parents consume say fifty; so that the pair and family devour two hundred every day. This, in three months, amounts to twenty thousand in one season. But as the grub continues in that state, four seasons, this single pair, with their family alone, without reckoning their descendants after the first year, would destroy eighty thousand grub
. A treatise on some of the insects injurious to vegetation . Insect pests. 30 COLEOPTERA. and of course would require many more of a smaller size. Say that, on an average of sizes, they consumed twenty apiece, these for the five make one hundred. Each of the parents consume say fifty; so that the pair and family devour two hundred every day. This, in three months, amounts to twenty thousand in one season. But as the grub continues in that state, four seasons, this single pair, with their family alone, without reckoning their descendants after the first year, would destroy eighty thousand grubs. Let us suppose that the half, namely, forty thousand, are females, and it is known that they usually lay about two hundred eggs each, it will appear, that no less than eight millions have been destroyed, or prevented from being hatched, by the labors of a single family of jays. It is by reasoning in this way, that we learn to know of what importance it is to attend to the economy of nature, and to be cautious how we derange it by our shortsighted and futile ; Our own country abounds with insect-eating beasts and birds, and without doubt the more than abundant Melolonthse form a portion of their nourishment. We have several Melolonthians whose injuries in the perfect and grub state approach to those of the Eu- Fig. 10. ° r r ropean cockchafer. Phyllophaga * quercina of Knoch, the May-beetle, as it is generally called here, is our common species. (Fig. 10.) It is of a chestnut-brown color, smooth, but finely punctured, that is, covered with ( ^H^ J ^tt^e impressed dots, as if pricked with the point of a needle; each wing-case has two or * A genus proposed by me in 1826. It signifies leaf-eater. Dejean subse- quently called this genus Ancylonychafi [s The genus Phyllophaga was indeed proposed by Dr. Harris, but was not accompanied by any description; it must therefore yield to the name Lachnosterna of Hope, described in 1837. Burmeister has improperly adopted f
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