DADDY-LONG-LEGS 225 



but swallow the flies at the rate of four a minute ! 

 Ploughing up the land in which the grubs abound is 

 recommended as a means of destroying them, and also 

 the application of gas-lime to the ground. Rolling the 

 turf and pressing it down also kills the grubs, but the 

 best chance of diminishing their ravages is found in 

 draining wet land and in feeding up the young grass 

 plants with " fertilizers," so that they may grow rapidly 

 and resist the injurious effect of the leather-jackets' 

 nibbling. 



Before leaving this subject it will be found interesting 

 to contrast the " leather-jacket " with the true " wire- 

 worms," which are the grubs of a remarkable kind of 

 beetle (there are half a dozen British species) called the 

 click-beetle (Fig. 22, C). They belong to a great family 

 of beetles (Coleoptera), known as the Elaterids or Elaters, 

 of which 7000 species are known, sixty being British. 

 Some of the most brilliant light-giving or phosphorescent 

 insects (not, however, the common glow-worms) belong 

 here. The click-beetles are so called because when one 

 is laid on its back it regains its proper pose, with the 

 legs beneath it, by a spring or " skip," accompanied by a 

 sharp click. The grubs of the click-beetles, known as 

 " wire-worms " (the name is also applied to centipedes), 

 are more threadlike, that is to say narrower, than the 

 leather-jackets. They are not legless " maggots," but 

 have three pairs of small legs (Fig. 22, D). They destroy 

 corn and grass, and do not change into the adult con- 

 dition in a few months, as do the leather-jackets, but 

 remain for three, and in some cases five, years in the 

 ground feeding on the roots of the corn and grass plants, 

 doing much destruction before they finally change into 

 beetles. 



