WIRE-WORMS 



365 



WIRE-WORMS (Family Elaterid^) 



If you have ever walked through a corn-field early in spring, 

 when the corn is coming up, you will probably have seen here and 

 there a patch of bare ground with hardly any green blades upon it. 

 Wire-worms are probably lying underneath, and have devoured 

 the roots of the young plants just as they were sprouting. 



This grub lives underground for no less than three years, and 

 all that time nibbles away at the roots of our crops. It does not 

 eat much of each, but, 

 after gnawing away just 

 enough to kill the plant, 

 it forces its way through 

 the earth, very much as 

 a worm does, until it 

 comes to another plant, 

 which it attacks in like 

 manner. 



Even a single wire- 

 worm can do a great deal 

 of harm in the course of 

 its life. If it were not 

 for such birds as the 

 starling and the rook, 

 indeed, which find out 

 where it is lying, and rout it out with their strong beaks, it would 

 destroy our corn and turnips, and almost everything else. 



Some species of wire-worms do not live underground, but in 

 dead trees, where they feed upon the decaying wood. These are 

 not so mischievous. 



When the wire-worm has come to the end of its three years of 

 feasting, it becomes a pupa, and lies quietly in the ground. After 

 a few months its shell bursts, and a beetle comes out; a long, 

 narrow beetle, which is commonly called a " click ". 



You may know this beetle by the way in which it recovers its 

 feet if it should happen to fall over on its back. Its legs are very 



Wire-worms 

 a, I, Wire-worms ; c, do., magnified : d^ the pupa or chrysalis 

 {e natural size}; 7^ a perfect beetle (natural size); g, do., magnified: 

 h, i, other beetles which produce wire-worms (magnified). 



