THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 3 
DESCRIPTION OF THE WHEAT WIRE-WORM. 
Agriotes mancus | Say. 
BY J. PETTIT, GRIMSBY, ONTARIO. 
For many years an insect, familiarly known among farmers as “the 
wire-worm,” has committed ravages from time to time among the wheat 
crops in different parts of the Province. As the history of this insect has 
not hitherto been traced out, I am happy to be able to make public, 
through the pages of the CANADIAN ENNTCMOLOGIST, the following descrip- 
tion of its larval and pupal states. 
In the fall of the year 1870, so unusual an amount of damage was 
inflicted upon the wheat crops in this vicinity by this wire-worm that I was 
led to try and breed it to the perfect state, with a view to ascertaining 
what species it was the larva of. By digging about the roots of the wheat 
plants, I obtained about a dozen specimens, which were placed with a few 
wheat plants in a large flower-pot, where they were kept supplied with 
food by planting occasionally a small quantity of wheat. With the first 
cold weather they ceased to eat, and were then placed in a sheltered situ- 
ation until the return of warm weather in spring, when they were restored 
to the breeding cage. They soon gave evidence of being alive, and 
possessing unimpaired appetites ; their rapid consumption of the wheat 
plants rendered it necessary to renew the supply quite as often as before. 
They were fed in this way until the month of July, when my absence from 
home caused them to be neglected ; on my return there was not a vestige 
of food left. Thinking that the worms had probably died of starvation, I 
paid no further attention to them until the 26th of August, when on 
removing a part of the earth from the pot, a pupa was disclosed, and on 
the 3rd of September the first Imago appeared, which proved to be a 
specimen of Agrzotes mancus Say. As only two more specimens came out 
during the remainder of September, I turned the earth out of the pot and 
carefully examined it; the inspection revealed seven specimens of the 
imago in the little cells in which they had transformed, and one larva. 
__ Among the larvæ collected, I had noticed one less than half the size of 
the others, and evidently much younger, which would account for the one 
still in the larval state. It had attained, however, a size fully equal to that 
of the others when first brought in during the previous autumn; and . 
hence I have formed the opinion that the larval state does not last longer 
than three years. This opinion has since been strengthened by the obser- 
