20 BULLETIN 156, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
hable. The best account of the species of which we are cognizant is 
that of Comstock and Slingerland.? 
On March 18,1912, Mr. J. J. Davis received a communication report- 
ing a very bad outbreak of wireworms on corn at Watertown, Wis., in 
1911. The fields attacked were low-lying peaty muck-lands ‘Be haa 
been reclaimed by tile draining. The correspondent said that he 
“plowed up a strip of land early last spring and turned up these 
insects by the millions, so that some of the furrows looked real 
white.” Larvee were inclosed with this communication and proved 
to be of this beetle. In June, 1913, Mr. Davis visited this locality 
and collected a number of the larve and sent them to the writer 
alive. They were confined in rearing cages on June 6, August 5 a 
pupa was found, and on August 14 the adult emerged from the 
pupa. Another larva pupated on September 2 and the adult emerged 
on September 11. These two records limit the pupal stage to nine 
days. 
For this species we recommend plowing sodland, intended for corn 
the succeeding year, duving late August. Cultivate corn as late as 
possible, and plow small-grain stubble during August, if possible. 
Another genus of importance in this group is Monocrepidius. The 
two species of this genus recorded as attacking cereal and forage 
crops in the United States are quite distinct. One (J/onocrepidius 
lividus DeG.) is a large species over one-half inch in length, of a dull, 
even brown color. It is shaped very much lke a Melanotus, but can 
easily be distinguished from that genus by the simple tarsal claws. 
The other species (Monocrepidius vespertinus Fab.) is a small 
elongate beetle, a little over one-fourth inch long. The body is prettily 
marked with yellow and dark brown. Both a these species are more 
or less southern in distribution, I/. lividus DeG. being distributed 
over the entire southern part of the United States from Florida to 
Texas and northward to northern New Jersey, scattering specimens 
being collected as far north as Massachusetts, while 7. vespertinus 
covers the same territory, but is more generally distributed north- 
ward. 
A third species, J/onocrepidius bellus Say, is a very small form, 
the beetle being hardly three-sixteenths of an inch long. This species 
is quite often taken in cornfields during the summer and under stones 
in pastures during the winter about Hagerstown, Md. Dr. F. H. 
Chittenden? records this species as having been reared from larvee 
feeding on the roots of creeping bent (Agrostis stolonifera) c on | the 
department grounds at Washington. 
1 Soetock, J. H., and Slingerland, M. V. Wireworms. Cornell Univ. Agr. Exp. Sta., 
Buls 33. p. 270; Noy; 1891. 
2U. 8S: Dept: Agr., Div. Ent., Notes, v. 10, No. (472: 
