64 



[1899 



HOPS. 



CLICK BEETLES AND WIREWORMS— Small Brown Click Beetle, 

 At/riotca obscurus, Linn. Pasture Click Beetle, Afiriotes 

 sputatnr, Linn. Carnivorous Wireworm Beetle, Athous 

 rJwmbeus, 01. 



\6v. '7 



Agriotks sp. : 1 and 2, Agriotes lineatus ; 3 and 4, A. ohicurus ; 5 and 6, 

 A. sjmtator, natural size and magnified; 7, Wireworm of A. sjmtator?; 8 and 9, 

 Wireworm of A . lineatus, natm-al size and magnified ; 10, back of pupa of Wireworm, 

 magnified. Lines show natural length. 



During the past season more than ordinary amount of enquiry was 

 sent me regarding treatment for prevention of Wireworm attack, together 

 with requests for leaflets on the subject. The applications began about 

 May 20th, and continued for the most part daily, and ranging some- 

 times up to as many as five or six a day for about a month, occasional 

 applications continuing for some weeks or longer. Amongst these 

 communications, however, little information was given that has not 

 previously been fully entered on,* with the exception of an easy and 

 successful method of trapping "Click Beetles," the parents of the 

 Wireworm, and thus much lessening the amount of propagation ; also 

 a good observation of a kind of Wireworm which has been recorded 

 as of carnivorous habits, being captured in the act of gnawing its way 

 through the abdomen of a recently developed "Vine Weevil" {Otio- 

 rhynchus sulcatus) ; and likewise I was able to add some observations, 

 of effect, or non-effect (as the case might be), of different kinds of cake 

 on Wireworms. 



The short but very useful observations on trapping were the result 

 of some experiments carried on by Messrs. G. Webb & Co., of Tunstall, 



* See more particularly the Special Report on Wireworms from contributions 

 by leading British Agriculturists, m my Annual lieport for 1882, pp. 22-63. 



