The =Common Cockchafer= (_Melolontha vulgaris_) will serve as a type of the lamellicorns (Fig. 65). The last segment of the body forms a gradually tapering process. The club of the antennæ with seven large leaflets in the male, and six smaller leaflets in the female (Fig. 72). Head, neck-shield, entire ventral surface, and legs, black; although these parts, with the exception of the head, may be reddish brown. Many specimens are thickly clothed with numerous white hairs; others are almost hairless. The beetles usually appear during May, but sometimes by mid April, and sometimes not till the beginning of June. In the evening they leave the soil and seek the neighbouring trees. They devour the leaves and especially the buds of oak, horse-chestnut, beech, poplar, willow, cherry, and other forest and fruit trees, but spare the lime and generally the morel cherry. Of coniferous trees it only devours the needles of larch and the young shoots of pine. Among cabbage-like plants it only devours rape. In “chafer years” the cockchafer becomes a veritable scourge to the farmer. For the purpose of laying her eggs (about forty in number), the female selects by preference a fertile soil rich in humus, but will also put up with a dry sandy soil. The grubs devour the grass and clover-roots in meadows, and, in cultivated fields, the roots of grain-plants, peas, and beans, rape, cabbage, etc., also turnips and potatoes; in gardens the roots of many vegetables and flowers, and, in particular, the underground parts of strawberry plants. If, on poor sandy soil, they can get nothing else, they devour the bark of oak and fir. Cockchafers take three to four years for their development: four in England, North Germany, and Central Germany; three in South France, Switzerland, the Rhine district, and Holland. In regions where the insect is abundant, every third or fourth year is a “chaferyear,” when the beetles appear in millions, while scarcely a cockchafer can be found in the intervening years. In districts less infested there is not the same marked distinction. It therefore appears that cockchafers and their larvæ are to be reckoned as injurious insects: their occurrence, however, is local. _Natural enemies_: moles, shrews, bats, foxes, crow-like birds, starlings, sparrows, owls, and the large species of ground-beetle. Winter floods do no harm to the grubs, which are then deep in the ground,—but this is not the case with floods occurring in summer, when they are near the surface eating the roots of the plants. _Remedies_: Collecting the grubs turned up during ploughing. Catching the cockchafers; this is very expensive, since it has to be done very energetically if most of them have left the pupastage. A part of the expense may, however, be recouped by using the cockchafers as manure.