You've heard a lot or read a lot recently about the Mayfly, and jokes about Duffers' Fortnight, when it is supposed to be so easy to catch the trout at this time and you may become confused with references to green drake, duns and spinners (that's the fly, not an instrument). But have you heard much, or anything, about the Maybug? It's a fine, hefty insect, a rose-coloured beetle of maybe an inch and a half long and thick of body. One banged against the kitchen window the other day and was a welcome sight. Just because it seems so rare, in the first place, and also because it was a reminder of summer days in slightly warmer parts of Europe. You won't mistake its buzzing for that of a bee or wasp - it seems somehow more motorised. It is best known as the cockchafer (Melolontha melolontha), and while it is known as the Maybug, it is even more a creature of the later summer months.
The Collins Field Guide to Insects has this to say: It often comes crashing into lighted windows in early summer. Its large size, up to 35 mm long, and buzzing flight make it a little frightening, but it is quite harmless to us, that is, the beetle does untold damage to trees and other plants, eating flowers and foliage. But the fat, white larvae from which it comes are perhaps more destructive. They remain in the ground for three or four years and eat plant roots, especially those of cereals and grasses. Sometimes called rook-worms, for these are partial to them. John McLoughlin of Coillte says the only damage they might do here would be at the larva stage in a nursery of young trees. In Germany and other parts of Europe warm summers seem to favour them. Maikafer in German.
Gilbert White notes that young Greek boys used to amuse themselves with cockchafers tied by a thread and flown like kites. Socrates advised people not to think too much of themselves but to let their imagination fly free like a cockchafer with a thread fastened to its body. White, who lived in Southern England, asserts that once in three or four years they swarm, strip woods of oak and hedges. Have the new pesticides killed off cockchafers and therefore Maybugs here? Or did we ever have them in swarms?