786 COCKBUKN COCKCHAFER mented upon in England, particularly at the time when, relying upon his official distinction and influence, he insisted upon introducing his daughter, one of his numerous illegitimate chil- dren, into society in London. At the conclu- sion of the arbitration of Geneva it was pro- posed that he should be raised to the rank of baron ; but the queen refused on account of his irregular domestic life, and he received only the grand cross of the order of the bath (1873). COCKBURN, Catharine, an English authoress, born hi London, Aug. 16, 1679, died May 11, 1749. She was the daughter of Capt. David Trotter, was converted from the Protestant to the Roman Catholic faith, and then reconvert- ed, and in 1708 married Mr. Cockbum, a non- juring clergyman, who afterward took the oaths, and obtained the living of Long Horse- ley, Cumberland. She wrote "A Defence of Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding," and various essays, tragedies, comedies, and poems. Her works were published by Dr. Birch (2 vols., 1751). MM R 1:1 It V Sir George, an English admiral, born April 22, 1772, died Aug. 19, 1853. He served on the East India, home, and Mediter- ranean stations, and received the thanks of the house of commons for his operations against Martinique, by which that island came into the possession of Great Britain. He took a con- spicuous part in the hostilities against the Uni- ted States, particularly in the burning of the capitol and other public buildings at Washington in 1814, and in laying waste the banks of the Potomac and Chesapeake. Upon the close of the war he was employed to convey Napoleon to St. Helena. After his return to England he served repeatedly as member of the house of commons and as lord of the admiralty. COCKBURN, Henry Thomas, lord, a Scottish jurist, born near Edinburgh, Oct. 26, 1779, died April 26, 1854. In 1800 he entered the faculty of advocates, and attached himself to the whig party, although his family connec- tions belonged to the tories. His politics in- terfered with success in his profession, but in course of time he rose to eminence as an ad- vocate. He brought himself into notice in 1818 by gratuitously defending several persons charged with treason. In 1828 he defended Helen McDougal, charged as an accomplice with Burke in the "Westport murders," and obtained her acquittal. Under the adminis- tration of Earl Grey, Jeffrey became attorney general and Cockbum solicitor general for Scotland. In 1834 he was raised to the bench as one of the lords of session, when he took the title of Lord Cockburn. Three years after- ward he was appointed a lord commissioner of justiciary. He was an early contributor to the "Edinburgh Review," an article in which from his pen went far to produce a reform in the method of selecting juries. His literary fame rests on his "Life and Correspondence of Lord Jeffrey" (2 vols., 1852), and his post- humous "Memorials of his Times" (1856). COCKCHAFER (melolontha vulgaris, Fab.), a European insect, belonging to the lamellicorn family of the order coleoptera or beetles. The genus melolontha was established by Fabricius,' who first separated it from scarabceus. The body of the melolonthians is oblong oval, con- vex, and usually of a brownish color ; the an- tennae have nine or ten joints, five to seven of which are flattened into leaf-like pieces, which open like the leaves of a book ; the jaws are horny and powerful for cutting and grinding the leaves and roots of plants ; the thorax is nearly square ; the wing cases leave uncovered the hinder extremity of the body ; the legs are long, the first pair being armed externally with two or three teeth, which enables them read- ily to penetrate the ground ; the claws of all are notched, which gives them a firm hold of the leaves. The habits and transformations of this species are well known, and will serve as a type for all the melolonthida, which are all more or less hurtful to vegetation, as they feed 1. Cockchafer (Melolontha vulgaris). 2. Larva, back view. 8. Larva, side view. 4. Pupa, under side. D. Pupa, upper Bide. on plants from their birth to their death. Their duration in the perfect state is very short, each individual living about a week, and the species wholly disappearing in the course of a month. After the pairing of the sexes, the males perish, and the females dig a hole in the earth six inches deep, by means of their fore feet, in which the eggs are deposited to the number of 100 to 200; after this they return to the surface, and soon die. In two weeks little whitish grubs are hatched from these eggs, with six legs near the head, and strong jaws, which attach themselves to the tender roots, and commit often the most deplorable ravages ; for three or four summers the larvae live near the surface, sinking below the reach of frost as winter approaches, and remaining torpid till spring, when they change their skin, and as- cend to the surface for food. When they have reached their full growth, they cease eating, and bury themselves about two feet deep, each
