08 The L((rr((l (uhI PkikiI Sfaije.s o/' A<»Tiotes ()l)sc'uriis 



and the first maxillae and labium: his figures are too small to be of 

 much utility. He further notes that the larva had been figured pre- 

 viously by De (leer and Bierkander: but points out inaccuracies in 

 the figures of these authors, that seem to indicate faulty identification. 



Chapuis and Candeze in their work published in 1855(3) do not 

 describe the larva, but merely quote references to the writings of Marsham 

 and Westwood. In 1860, Curtis published in his work on Farm Insects, 

 an account of Elateridae of importance to agriculture; he did not 

 describe the larva of Agriotes ohscurus, and considered the larva of 

 A. lineatus to be the common and important species. 



Schiodte(i6) defined larval characters of the genus Agriotes in 1869, 

 and described those of A. lineatus. He figured the left mandible, as 

 well as the eighth and ninth abdominal segments. No mention is 

 made of A. ohscurus. Perris in 1878(14) described many larvae of 

 Elateridae; but he merely quotes references to Marsham (12) and 

 Westwood (18), and does not add any description of A. obscurus. 

 Beling(2), in a full account of the metamorphoses of Elateridae, 

 published in 1883 — 4, describes the larva of Agriotes lineatus very 

 completely, and states that he could only detect slight differences 

 between the larvae of A. lineatus and A. obscurus. Finally, the subject 

 is brought up to date by Xambeu(20) in 1912 and 1913 by his work 

 on the life histories of Elateridae. He adds little to our knowledge 

 of Agriotes obscurus, merely referring to Beling {op. cit.) and adding 

 a few descriptive remarks. It has been somewhat difficult to trace 

 literature definitely referring to Agriotes obscurus, owing to the long 

 established custom of terming Elaterid larvae under the collective 

 title of "wireworms," without reference to any definite species. This, 

 together with a number of cases of inaccurate identification in the older 

 literature, has often rendered the information of doubtful specific value. 



2. Material and Methods. 



The idea of studying the life history of certain Elateridae, whose 

 larvae are known as " wireworms," was first suggested to me by Dr Imms, 

 to whom my thanks are also due for advice given from time to time. 

 The first problem requiring solution, was the determination of the exact 

 species of which the common wireworm forms the larval stage. With 

 this intention, the material was purposely obtained from as wide a 

 range of localities, and under as different conditions (of soil, crop, etc.), 

 as possible. The area covered was mainly in Cheshire and around 



