Mr. Walford's Observations on the JVireworm. 157 



I shall now proceed to relate the discovery of the insect, and 

 to detail the injury supposed to be done by it. 



In October L802, having occasion to call upon an agricul- 

 turist* whose skill and judgement in farming are rarely equalled, 

 he informed me that his green wheat was dying and losing plant 

 very much, the reason of which he could not comprehend. I 

 immediately suspected that it was occasioned by the Wireworm, 

 but what kind of insect it was, I could not inform him. I there- 

 fore requested that he would accompany me to the field where 

 the greatest injury was done, in order that we might examine 

 into it. This we accordingly did ; and we were successful in 

 discovering three of the insects in question, of which two were 

 in the act of destroying the wheat, as above mentioned. With 

 their projecting jaws these insects cut round the outside grass 

 about an inch below the surface of the soil, to get at the young 

 white shoot in the centre, which they eat : upon this, vegetation 

 is immediately stopped, and the plant dies. I suspect that they 

 first eat the flour in the grains which has not been drawn up by 

 vegetation; for, when we touched them, they ran into the husks; 

 and two of the three insects I carried home in the husks, which 

 appear to be their habitations, and probably the place where 

 they change from the larva to their perfect state. 



The injury which the public sustains by the ravages of these 

 insects may, in some measure, be calculated from Mr. Olley's 

 loss in 1802: he sowed fifty acres of a clay soil with wheat; out 

 of these ten were destroyed by them, which were replanted by 

 dibbling-in one bushel of seed per acre. The price of wheat 

 at that time was eight shillings per bushel. 



We here observe one fifth part of the quantity sown destroyed 



* Mr. Thomas Olley, of Stoke next Clare, in Suffolk. 



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