WIEEWORMS ATTACKING CEREAL AND FORAGE CROPS. 5 



misidentification, the insect probably being Oorymbites sp. The 

 wheat wireworm is normally a grass feeder, living on the roots of 

 sod, and with the abundance of its natural food supply producing 

 no appreciable disturbance in the meadows, but when the sod land 

 is broken these wireworms concentrate in the drill rows or hills of 

 corn, the usual crop to follow sod in the eastern United States, and 

 often cause absolute failure of the crop by destroying the seed 

 and eating off the roots of such plants as may germinate. This 

 species is usually more destructive, therefore, on land recently broken 

 from sod. Last year (1913) the writer investigated an outbreak in 

 northern New York and located as many as 10 wireworms to the hill 

 in cornfields, rendering the crop, so far as grain was concerned, an 

 absolute failure. This year (1914) the same field was again planted 

 in corn, and again the wireworms destroyed most of the crop. 



The larvae spend three years in the soil before transforming to 

 beetles, so that the depredations of this pest may be looked for during 

 the second season as well as the first following the breaking of sod. 



LIFE HISTORY. 



The beetles are in evidence early in the spring, and at this 

 time can be swept from wheat and, in fact, from any vegetation 

 around the fields, or they may be found under boards and rub- 

 bish. Mating occurs during April and May, and immediately egg- 

 laying begins. The eggs are deposited in grasslands exclusively, so 

 far as our observations go, the female burrowing into the ground or 

 under rubbish to oviposit. The young larvae feed during the ensuing 

 summer, and, hibernating when about half grown, resume feeding 

 the following spring. They continue to feed during the second 

 summer and hibernate the second winter as full grown or mature 

 larvae. The third spring they resume feeding and continue it until 

 early in July, when they leave the plants and form small earthen 

 pupal cells in the soil. 



In 1913 Agriotes started to pupate about July 15 in northern New 

 York. The writer found many mature larva? and pupae in the fields 

 at Bridgeport, N. Y., on the shore of Lake Oneida, on July 17, while 

 investigating a severe outbreak of this pest on the farm of Mr. C. J. 

 Fisher. Other larvae collected at Bridgeport pupated as late as 

 August 12. In 1914 several hundred larvae were reared in the 

 Hagerstown laboratory. All that became adult this year pupated 

 between the middle and the end of July. The pupal stage varied 

 in duration from 15 to 21 days. 



Specimens collected by Mr. J. J. Davis, of this bureau, at Water- 

 town, Wis., pupated on August 8. Mr. Pettit found the pupae in 



