l6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 82 



Borodin (6) reports that in Russia the best remedies for wire- 

 worms are various baits, consisting of sliced potatoes, carrots, beets, 

 oil cakes, cabbage stalks, etc., buried 3 or 4 inches in the soil. Those 

 poisoned with Paris green or arsenic need no further attention. 

 The unpoisoned ones must be inspected weekly. Poisoned maize baits 

 are also recommended. 



French (15) says that in Australia poisoned baits consisting of 

 cut-up turnips, carrots, etc., soaked in lead arsenate, have given good 

 results. 



Lovett (38) states that in Oregon poisoned-bran mash may be 

 placed under stones or boards in the fields as a control measure for 

 wireworms. 



Masaitis (39) reports that in Siberia baits of horse dung, poisoned 

 with sodium arsenite, appeared to be considerably more effective than 

 those of poisoned linseed or hempseed cake. 



More recently special attractants have been given serious attention. 

 Comparative tests, conducted in Washington State by Spuler (83), in 

 which rice flour, graham flour, graham flour and sugar, bran, graham 

 flour and oranges, graham flour and lemons, potatoes, carrot roots, 

 carrot tops, and apples were used as baits gave a descending order 

 of attractiveness as listed. Other tests, in which baits consisting of 

 germinating Alaska peas, beans, corn, graham flour, and potatoes 

 were used, indicated that the seeds and flour were about equal in at- 

 tractiveness, but that the potatoes were far inferior. For practical 

 control work use baits, particularly germinating seeds, to allure the 

 wireworms to definite spots, and then the worms may be easily killed 

 with a soil fumigant, such as calcium cyanide. When the worms have 

 gathered around the bait, spaced about four feet apart, to partake of 

 the feast prepared for them, all that remains to be done is to bury 

 a little of this granular fumigant near the bait. Shortly the deadly 

 fumes send the banqueters to their happy hunting ground and all is 

 ended. 



Federal entomologists ( i ) at Clarksville, Tenn., have recently made 

 an interesting discovery in connection with poisoned-bran bait fed 

 to tobacco wireworms, which have hitherto stubbornly resisted all 

 efforts at direct control. These worms were easily attracted to bait 

 flavored with ordinary nitrobenzene. In five series of large-scale ex- 

 periments in tobacco fields these worms were reduced from 50 to 60 

 per cent by the use of this chemical as a bait flavoring. Other en- 

 tomologists (2) at the Florida experiment station remark that a 

 flavoring of nitrobenzene added to poisoned-bran bait is very attrac- 

 tive to a variety and large range of insects, and they found it quite 



