GRAMINEOUS CROPS. 89 



and tlioras. The beetles are commonly met with, on 

 flowers, etc., in the daytime ; and their larvae are too 

 well-known everywhere, as wire- WORMS, being long and 

 slender, with very tough skins, and feeding on the roots 

 of plants." The wire-worms gnaw, and sometimes destroy 

 to a serious extent, the roots of various farm crops (grain 

 and root, as well as fodder crops). The larvae (wire- 

 worms) of the skip-jacks, or click-beetles, are long, slender, 

 and either slightly flattened or cylindrical, usually covered 



Fig. 36. — Click Beetles aud Wikewokms. 



A. Slater .spittator and larva. 



B. Elater obscurits and larva. 



C. Elater sanguineus. 



(AH nat. size.) 



with a hard, shining, ochre-coloured skin, and furnished 

 with a horny head and three pairs of short legs. They 

 live either three or five years, according to the supply of 

 food. A scarcity of food means a prolonged existence in 

 the larval stage. In the winter the larvae go deeper in 

 the soil, to avoid the severity of frosts. At the expiration 

 of the larval period, the wire-worms again go deeper in 

 the soil, surround themselves in earth-cells, and there 

 change to pupae. The pupae either hibernate until the 

 following spring, or appear as perfect insects in from four- 

 teen to twenty-one days' during the month of August 

 " The eggs from which these grubs are hatched are laid 



