10 BULLETIN 156, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
predaceous, while other forms also in this genus are known to be 
exclusively vegetable feeders. 
During the spring of 1909 a reconnoissance was made to determine 
the extent and nature of the damage being done by these. insects. 
Circular letters with blank forms inclosed were sent to the agents of 
the warehouse and elevator companies at most of the large grain- 
shipping points in the Pacific Northwest. These men are very inti- 
mately in touch with the farmers and usually know of any serious 
depredations that are likely to affect the production of grain. From 
their rephes we found that corn was being seriously damaged at 
Spokane, Pullman, Kiona, Johnson, and Colville, in Washington, 
and Latah and Mineral in Idaho; oats were being almost completely 
destroyed at Ritzville, Downs, Espanola, Govan, and Vancouver, in 
Washington, and Moscow and Latah in Idaho; and that wheat was 
being damaged at Wilbur, Connell, and Govan in Washington. The 
fact that damage to wheat was not reported from more localities 
does not signify that wheat is less susceptible to the attacks of these 
insects. The buyers will not report any damage to wheat for fear 
of starting a scare among the farmers and thereby abnormally rais- 
ing the price asked when the buying opens in the fall. 
THE INFLATED WIREWORM. 
(Corymbites inflatus Say.) 
The inflated wireworm occurs throughout most of the northern 
United States, but is limited as a pest to cereal crops, so far as our 
observations now record, to the regions of eastern Washington. and 
Oregon and western Idaho, known as the semiarid Transition Zone 
and characterized, when not under cultivation, by the presence of 
bunch grass (Agropyron spicatum) and June grass (Poa sand- 
bergii) and by the absence of sagebrush. This region is only partly 
summer fallowed, crops often being grown on the same land for 
several consecutive years. | 
The beetle is robust, but little more than one-fourth of an inch 
in length, and of a slate-gray color, sometimes being almost black. 
The wireworm is about one-half inch long, depressed, with a pair of 
backwardly directed spurs on the ninth abdominal segment, and pale 
vellow. 
In the spring of 1909 Mr. George I. Reeves, of this bureau, re- 
corded finding the larve of the inflated wireworm damaging seed corn 
at Pullman, Wash. His observations were carried on principally in 
the cornfield of a Mr. Curtis, north of the town. On this farm he 
found from 4 to 10 larvee to the hill when he first investigated the out- 
break, on May 24, 1909. The wireworms were in various stages of 
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