392 RAVAGES OF INSECTS. 



meadows and pastures, unless in fields recently laid down 

 with grass. " The wire-worm," says Spence, " is particularly 

 destructive for a few years in gardens recently converted 

 from pasture ground. In the botanic garden at Hull, thus 

 circumstanced, a great proportion of the annuals sown in 

 1813 were destroyed by it. A very simple and effectual 

 remedy, in such cases, was mentioned to me by Sir Joseph 

 Banks. He recommended that slices of potatoes, stuck 

 upon skewers, should be buried near the seeds sown, ex- 

 amined every day, and the wire-worms, which collect upon 

 them in great numbers, destroyed."* 



The wire-worm is long, slender, and very tough and 

 hard ; but otherwise it has no resemblance to wire, being 

 whitish in colour, of a flattish form, and jointed or ringed. 

 Its breathing spiracles, two in number, are on the back of 

 its last ring. 



An insect of this family (Elater noctilucus, Lixn.) is ex- 

 ceedingly destructive, in the West Indies, to the sugar- 

 cane ; the grub, according to Humboldt and Bonpland, 

 feeding on its roots and killing the plants. "f 



Instances are by no means rare, however, of insects being 

 accused of depredations of which they are not guilty, from 

 the mere circinnstance of their being found in abundance 

 whei'e ravages have been committed by others that have 

 naturally disappeared. It is not improbable that this was 

 the case with a grub of some beetle {Staphylinidce .?) men- 

 tioned by Mr. Walford, and mistaken by him for the wire- 

 worm. Out of fifty acres of wheat sown in 1802, ten had 

 been destroyed in October by this grub eating into the 

 centre of the young stem an inch below the surface and 

 killing the plant.;]: It seems still more probable that the 

 grub of a native beetle {Zahrus gibhus, Stephens) which 

 has been found in considerable numbers near Worthing, 

 Brighton, Hastings, and Cambridge, has been unjustly 

 blamed as a destroyer of corn ; though we have the respect- 

 able authority of Germar, who, with other members of the 

 society of Natural History of Halle, imagined he had ascer- 



* Intr. i. 182-3. t Gcog. des Plantes, 136. 



X Linn, Trans., vol. ix. p. 15G-G1, 



