17 



plants in damaged fields in early spring, he found, not the brown 

 flaxseeds of the Hessian fly, well known to every one, but pale 

 watery larvie between the bases of the leaves just above the root, 

 corresponding closely, according to his description, to the larvse of 

 Meromyza americana, treated in my previous reports under the popular 

 name of the "wheat bulb worm." It is consequently en :irely possi- 

 ble thar, locally, in southern llluiois, the damage to wheat, attributed 

 to the Hessian hy, is really due to this msect. 



The common wireworms (larvse of Elateridse) have been neither 

 more nor less destructive than usual in corn fields, during the 

 past season. The fact was repeatedly noticed that m fields two 

 years from sod, injury to corn was much more evident than the 

 year preceding, or in other fields of the same vicinity in sod one 

 year ago. This fact is doubtless to be attributed to the death of 

 the grass in the sod the second year, and the consequent concentra- 

 tion on the corn of all the wireworms in the field. Corn on sod was 

 destroyed by the wireworms the first year on the farm of Mr. E. 

 A. Chester, near Champaign, but the ground had been used during 

 the fall, winter, and spring, as a feed lot for cattle and sheep, so 

 that the sod had been nearly destroyed. In a field near Cham- 

 paign, more than half of which had been destroyed by wireworms, 

 (the whole field being as a consequence plowed up and replanted) 

 a prolonged search failed to discover a single wire worm, except in 

 the hills of corn, — in each of which from two or three to six or 

 eight were present. The impropriety of the common practice of 

 replanting is obvious. By planting between the rows of young 

 corn and plowing up the latter at once, the wireworms are scattered 

 and their food destroyed, and they are forced to attack the new corn 

 just planted ; whereas, if this were allowed to get a start before 

 the corn of the first planting was plowed up, the probabilities of 

 loss would be greatly lessened. 



For the purpose of determining more precisely the life history and 

 the species of the wireworms affecting our corn, breeding experi- 

 ments were begun this season. From over one hundred larvae, ob- 

 tained May 25, and placed in boxes of earth mixed with soaked 

 corn and covered with sod, we obtained a consider sble number of 

 imagos, all belonging to the species Melanotus crUmlosus as deter- 

 mined for me by Dr. Horn, except a single specimen of the better 

 known species, Melanotus coimnunis. When the breeding boxes 

 were examined on the 12th of July no pup* were found, but by 

 August 3 transformations had begun. On the 22d of August 

 pupse were seen, but no imagos. On the 12th of September fully 

 developed imagos, just transformed, were dug out of the earth. 

 No imagos appeared above ground during fall and winter, although 

 living individuals were removed from .the pupal cells in the 

 earth as late as November. It is evident, therefore, that crih- 

 ulosus (and probably communis also) completes its larval life dur- 

 ing the latter part of summer; that it pupates in cells in the 

 earth ; commences to transform to the imago in early autumn ; and 

 remains under ground for hibernation. 



