16 BULLETIN 156, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
seed present to sprout, and the entire crop of weeds is subsequently 
destroyed by the summer plowing. By the present method of farming 
the weed seeds are turned down to such a depth that many can not 
germinate, but he dormant and sprout whenever they happen to.be 
brought to the surface by subsequent cultivation. One crop of weed 
seed is in this manner often a pest for several succeeding years. 
A shght variation of these suggestions will readily adapt them 
to the more humid sections inhabited by the inflated wireworm. 
THE CORN WIREWORMS. 
Several species of beetles belonging to the genus Melanotus are 
recorded as pests to cereal and forage crops in the United States. 
The beetles usually range from 
medium-sized to large forms 
measuring from one-half to 
three-fourths inch in _ length. 
They vary in color from hght 
reddish-brown to almost black. 
The beetles of this genus can 
always be distinguished with 
a low-power lens by the comb-- 
like claws on the last tarsal seg- 
ment. 
The wireworms are reddish- 
brown in color, about 14 inches 
long, cylindrical in shape, and 
always with the last joint of 
Fic. 5.—One of the corn wireworms caer: the body ending aD three neon 
notus communis): a, Adult; 6, larva; Spicuous lobes. 
Gy Inst segments of ‘same ; d, pupa. All Many species of this genus in- 
enlarged. (From Chittenden.) p 
habit decaying logs, and several 
writers record them as predaceous.t~ A note in the Bureau of Ento- 
mology files,? by Mr. Pergande, records a larva of this genus as feed- 
ing on the eggs of a locust, or grasshopper. A similar record,* dated 
September 19, 1884, is made by the same observer, wherein a Me- 
lanotus larva was found with locust eggs and reared to the adult con- 
dition by feeding on potato and dead beetle (lamellicorn) larve. 
These wireworms are a pest to cereal and forage crops in the Mid- 
dle Atlantic States, the New England States, and in the Mississippi 
Valley from Kansas northward. Forbes places d/elanotus communis 
1 Perris, Edouard. Histoire des insectes du pin maritime. In Ann. Soc. Ent. France, 
ser. 3, T. 2, p. 139 (séances du 13. Avril, 1853). 
2U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Ent., Notes, v. 4, No. 2883, Oct. 9, 1882. 
2U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Ent., Notes, v. 4, No. 2884, Sept. 19, 1884. 
