i i oo ’ 
- 
es 
ee ee 
eg ee eae 
. a, 
: 
; 
Y 
: 
: 
3 
4 
3 
: 
| 
wa fou es 
i td: Ps — 
= 
de ai aaa 
nearly smooth on tie thoracic seements and on the venter; the dorsum 
of the abdominal segments is marked with numerous shallow trans- 
verse notches, and a slight dark ridge which crosses the segment near the 
cephalic border, then curves suddenly, extends obliquely caudo-ven- 
trad on each side and nearly meets the faint impressed line extending 
across the segment. The caudal and cephalic margins of the first tho- 
racic segment, and the caudal margin of the other segments, except the 
first and last, are marked by numerous fine longitudinal strie. A linear 
mesal depression ending abruptly near the caudal border of each seg- 
ment, extends along the dorsum. Body sparsely clothed with long yel- 
lowish brown hairs; a row of from 18 to 22 hairs extends around the 
body from one subdorsal line to the other near the caudal border of 
each segment except the head and last segment; two similar hairs arise 
near the cephalic margin of the segments, one dorsad and the other 
ventrad of each spiracle ; the lateral. and caudal tubercles on the anal 
segment have one or two hairs arising from their sides, and other hairs 
arise from the proleg and from small tubercles on the venter of the seg- 
ment.”—Comstocok & SLINGERLAND. 
Imago. (Plate VII., Fig. 2.)—‘Piceous black, shining, surface 
often with eneous tinge, elytra often pale, legs pale rufous; surface 
sparsely clothed with ‘grayish pubescence. Thorax moderately, not 
densely, punctured, hind angles divergent, carinate, the carina diverg- 
ing from the margin; flanks moderately densely punctured in front, a 
large smooth space posteriorly. Elytra moderately deeply striate, striz 
- punctured, intervals convex and punctulate. The prosternal mucro is 
horizontal, the mesosternum is however not prominent. Length 9-15 
Mah? Cno. H. Horn. (Trans. Am. Ent. Soc. VIII., p. 73.) 
The female differs from the male in having the thorax shorter, its 
disk more convex and punctured, the sides more arcuate, and the gen- 
eral form stouter and more conyex 
NATURAL ENEMIES OF WIREWORMS. 
A single parasitic fly has been bred by us from a wireworm, which 
because of its condition when found, could be only doubtfully referred 
to Melanotus fissilis. Comstock and Slingerland frequently found 
larvee killed in their breeding cages by a fungus determined by Profes- 
sor Roland Thaxter as probably Metarrhizius anisoplia arve killed 
by this disease have the body filled by the growth of the fungus, -and 
assume a woody appearance. An Asaphes larva turned out by the plow 
at Champaign May 10, 1886, was infested by a parasitic fungus of an- 
other genus, very much like Cordyceps. 
Tn my work on the food of birds,* I found that some seventeen 
species eat to some extent “click beetles,” or their larve, the wireworms. 
These insects constitute about two per cent. of the food of five species 
of the thrush family—the robin and the brown, the hermit, the wood, 
and the Alice, thrushes. The examination of the food of these birds 
continued throughout the year, and the proportionate amount of these 
beetles eaten was found to be greatest during the months when they 
* Bull. Ill. State Lab. Nat. Hist., Vols. I and IT. 
