INJURING THE ROOT. 213 



Wireworms. 



Elaterida . 



Sprouting kernels of corn are often attacked by a 

 hard, slender, yellowish worm, commonly called the 

 wire-worm, which eats out the substance of the seed 

 or attacks the young roots. These are the young or 

 larvae of various species of brown, flattened, elongate 

 beetles, called click beetles, snapping bugs, or " ski}) 

 jacks," on account of their habit of snapping upward 

 in the air when placed on their backs. Eggs are laid 1 >y 

 these beetles in grass-lands especially, and the larva' 

 that hatch feed for several years upon the roots of vari- 

 ous plants. They finally transform during autumn 

 in hollow cells in the earth into pupae, and shortly 

 afterwards again change to beetles. They do not, 

 however, leave their pupa cells at once, but remain 

 in them until the following spring. Professor J. H. 

 Comstock has found that in breeding cages, if these 

 cells be broken open in fall the beetles die. 



Remedies. — On account of the fact just men- 

 tioned, fall plowing has been recommended as a 

 preventive of wire-worm injury, the suj^position be- 

 ing that the cells in which the beetles are resting 

 will thus be broken open and the insects perish. 

 Another method which has been recommended by 

 leading entomologists is that of sowing corn which 

 has been soaked in arsenic water over the field, about 

 ten days before the crop is planted, and harrowing 

 it in. The wire-worms attacking the poisoned corn 

 will be killed. 



