NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 7I 



There are no very satisfactory methods of preventing injury by 

 wireworms aside from avoiding the planting of susceptible crops 

 such as corn and potatoes upon badly infested and recently turned 

 sod. Even this, in view of the statements of Mr Lawton, is a meas- 

 ure of limited application. Peas and buckwheat are relatively 

 immune and may sometimes be sown advantageously in badly 

 infested ground. Deep and thorough cultivation of the soil in 

 late July or August will break open the pupal cells and destroy the 

 pupae and recently transformed adults, thus reducing the number 

 of beetles the following spring. Plowing late in the fall is of little 

 value in destroying wireworms. 



Poisoned baits of various kinds destroy numbers of the parent 

 insects, the familiar brown " snapping beetles " and " click beetles," 

 and it is possible that the use of poisoned baits would result in 

 keeping these pests well controlled, even in areas where they are 

 unusually troublesome, as for example in the immediate vicinity of 

 Albany. 



Stalk borer (Papaipema nitela Guen.). The stalk 

 borer, like other pests of corn, received special attention during the 

 summer of 1919 and as a consequence an unusually large number 

 of reports accompanied by specimens were received. The partly 

 grown stalk borer is easily distinguished from all other corn-boring 

 insects by the characteristic caterpillar one-half to three-fourths of 

 an inch long and strongly marked with purplish brown and five 

 white stripes, one down the middle of the back and two on each 

 side, the latter wanting near the middle of the body due to the 

 blotchlike extension of the purplish brown. This gives the active 

 moving caterpillar the appearance of having been injured. 



There is an older larger stage which has received comparatively 

 little attention, possibly because of uncertainty regarding its identity. 

 It is distinctly lighter than the younger stages and usually has no 

 well-defined blotch on the anterior abdominal segments. A detailed 

 description of this stage is given below: 



Larva. Length 2.5 cm. Head, thoracic shield and suranal plate 

 mostly pale yellowish, the thoracic and abdominal segments reddish 

 or yellowish red and with distinct median and sublateral whitish 

 stripes and a well-defined broad, white lateral stripe on the first, 

 second and the anterior portion of the third thoracic segment. 



Mouth-parts dark brownish, the anterior margin and the teeth 

 of the mandibles nearly black. Five ocelli in a semicircle, the four 

 posterior in a black or dark brown area which is continued indis- 

 tinctly to form a broad, darkish stripe resting upon the lateral 

 margin of the thoracic shield and a portion of the segment just 



