202 



STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Fig. 52. — Works of Clivinia impressifrons, in planted seed-corn, enlarged. Original. 



Wire-worms {Agriotes mancus et al.). 



Low ground and more especially mucky ground, is apt to be infested 

 with wire-worms. These are slender, yellow, little creatures, cylindrical 

 in form, and in size varying from half an inch to more than an inch 

 in length. All have hard, polished skins amounting almost to shells, 

 and six short legs just behind the flattened head, besides a sucker-like 

 false-foot on the last segment. Wire-worms usually feed on the roots 

 of grains, corn and other grasses, though they will not refuse potatoes 

 when occasion offers. There are many species to be found in Michigan, 

 and while one may prefer corn, another wheat, and so on, they may 

 all be considered as injurious, except those found in rotting wood, and 

 treated together as far as we are concerned. The adults are the com- 

 mon snapping-beetles or click-beetles, the little fellows that jump up 

 into the air with a click, when placed on their backs. These beetles lay 

 the eggs from which the wire-worms hatch, and the wire-worms in turn 

 become click-beetles after passing through a chrysalis stage in their 

 little earthen cells in the soil. It is probable that two years are re- 

 quired by the larvae to attain maturity. The winter is passed in little 

 cells in the soil in some cases, while in others the adult beetles emerge 

 in the fall and hibernate. 



Wire-worms are primarily insects of grassland and the fact that they 

 require two or three years to develop helps to explain why it is that 



