While hoping that the future will sink the unfortunate “fuller” in oblivion, we will use the term “pine chafer” between ourselves.  Under that name no one can possibly mistake the insect in question, which frequents the pine-tree only.

It has a handsome and dignified appearance, rivalling that of Oryctes nasicornis.  Its costume, if it has not the metallic splendour dear to the Scarabaei, the Buprestes and the rose-beetles, is at least unusually elegant.  A black or chestnut background is thickly sown with capriciously shaped spots of white velvet; a fashion both modest and handsome.

The male bears at the end of his short antennae a kind of plume consisting of seven large superimposed plates or leaves, which, opening and closing like the sticks of a fan, betray the emotions that possess him.  At first sight it seems that this magnificent foliage must form a sense-organ of great perfection, capable of perceiving subtle odours, or almost inaudible vibrations of the air, or other phenomena to which our senses fail to respond; but the female warns us that we must not place too much reliance on such ideas; for although her maternal duties demand a degree of impressionability at least as great as that of the male, yet the plumes of her antennae are extremely meagre, containing only six narrow leaves.

What then is the use of the enormous fan-like structure of the male antennae?  The seven-leaved apparatus is for the Pine-chafer what his long vibrating horns are to the Cerambyx and the panoply of the head to the Onthophagus and the forked antlers of the mandibles to the Stag-beetle.  Each decks himself after his manner in these nuptial extravagances.

This handsome chafer appears towards the summer solstice, almost simultaneously with the first Cigales.  The punctuality of its appearance gives it a place in the entomological calendar, which is no less punctual than that of the seasons.  When the longest days come, those days which seem endless and gild the harvests, it never fails to hasten to its tree.  The fires of St. John, reminiscences of the festivals of the Sun, which the children light in the village streets, are not more punctual in their date.

At this season, in the hours of twilight, the Pine-chafer comes every evening if the weather is fine, to visit the pine-trees in the garden.  I follow its evolutions with my eyes.  With a silent flight, not without spirit, the males especially wheel and wheel about, extending their great antennary plumes; they go to and fro, to and fro, a procession of flying shadows upon the pale blue of the sky in which the last light of day is dying.  They settle, take flight again, and once more resume their busy rounds.  What are they doing up there during the fortnight of their festival?

The answer is evident:  they are courting their mates, and they continue to render their homage until the fall of night.  In the morning both males and females commonly occupy the lower branches.  They lie there isolated, motionless, indifferent to passing events.  They do not avoid the hand about to seize them.  Most of them are hanging by their hind legs and nibbling the pine-needles; they seem to be gently drowsing with the needles at their mouths.  When twilight returns they resume their frolics.