2 FARMERS’ BULLETIN 733. 
pearance of the plants, which may later produce 50 per cent or more 
of a normal yield. 
The wireworms are ravenous feeders, often cutting off all the roots 
of a plant. They are especially destructive during the two months 
before they transform to adults. A single half-grown wireworm is 
capable of killing a young corn sprout and severely injuring a plant 
from 6 to 8 inches in height. Therefore it can be seen that when 
there is a concentrated attack by many wireworms in one hill the 
plants have but small chance of surviving. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE INSECT IN ITS DIFFERENT STAGES. 
The parent of the corn and cotton wireworm (fig. 1, @) is a small 
dark brown click-beetle, or “ snapping beetle.” measuring about one- 
2 fourth of an inch in length. The eggs (fig. 2) laid 
by this beetle are white and nearly round; when first 
deposited they are translucent, but in a day or two 
become opaque. The young wireworms, or larve, 
en after hatching from the eggs are minute, measuring 
FIG. 2 Eee ie =©from an eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch in 
Wierd (oriee «= Length. When from half to full grown (fig. 1, 0) 
nal.) they may be described as “soft, membranous, and 
elongate.” The body, which is usually white, is apparently composed 
of 26 segments, or joints, every third segment being swollen. The 
last segment is simply pointed. The head, which is yellow, is long 
and slender, and has a pair of prominent, dark brown 
jaws. When full grown these larve measure about an 
inch in length and are but slightly thicker than pack 
thread. The pupe (fig. 3), to which the larve change 
before becoming adult beetles, have the same general 
color as the larve and are about five-sixteenths of an 
inch long and nearly an eighth of an inch thick. Each 
pupa eccurs in a small earthen chamber constructed by 
the larva. 
All stages of the insect are spent in the ground ex- 
cept the adult or beetle, which only enters it at the time 
of egg deposition. 
.There are a number of other species of wireworms 1a pe 
which are often found associated with this wireworm _ resting stage, of 
. : the corn and 
about the roots of corn and others of its food plants. cotton wire- 
5 . eve worm. Much 
The corn and cotton wireworm can be easily distin-  eniargea. (Origi- 
guished from these, however, by its light creamy color ™!) 
and threadlike form, as most other wireworms are stouter and usually 
either reddish or brownish. 
WHERE THE INSECT OCCURS. 
Reports show that the corn and cotton wireworm has been de- 
structive in the Carolinas, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and Missis- 
