a a ae 
WIREWORMS ATTACKING CEREAL AND FORAGE CROPS. 5 
misidentification, the insect probably being Corymbites sp. The 
wheat wireworm is normally a grass feeder, living on the roots of 
sod, and with the abundance of its natural food supply producing 
no appreciable disturbance in the meadows, but when the sod land 
is broken these wireworms concentrate in the drill rows or hills of 
corn, the usual crop to follow sod in the eastern United States, and 
often cause absolute failure of the crop by destroying the seed 
and eating off the roots of such plants as may germinate. This 
species is usually more destructive, therefore, on land recently broken 
from sod. Last year (1913) the writer investigated an outbreak in 
northern New York and located as many as 10 wireworms to the hill 
in cornfields, rendering the crop, so far as grain was concerned, an 
absolute failure. This year (1914) the same field was again planted 
in corn, and again the wireworms destroyed most of the crop. 
The larve spend three years in the soil before transforming to 
beetles, so that the depredations of this pest may be looked for during 
the second season as well as the first following the breaking of sod. 
LIFE HISTORY. 
The beetles are in evidence early in the spring, and at this 
time can be swept from wheat and, in fact, from any vegetation 
around the fields, or they may be found under boards and rub- 
bish. Mating occurs during April and May, and immediately egg- 
laying begins. The eggs are deposited in grasslands exclusively, so 
far as our observations go, the female burrowing into the ground or 
under rubbish to oviposit. The young larve feed during the ensuing 
summer, and, hibernating when about half grown, resume feeding 
the following spring. They continue to feed during the second 
summer and hibernate the second winter as full grown or mature 
larvee. The third spring they resume feeding and continue it until 
early in July, when they leave the plants and form small earthen 
pupal cells in the soil. 
In 1913 Agriotes started to pupate about July 15 in northern New 
York. The writer found many mature larve and pupez in the fields 
at Bridgeport, N. Y., on the shore of Lake Oneida, on July 17, while 
investigating a severe outbreak of this pest on the farm of Mr. C. J. 
Fisher. Other larve collected at Bridgeport pupated as late as 
August 12. Im 1914 several hundred larve were reared in the 
Hagerstown laboratory. All that became adult this year pupated 
between the middle and the end of July. The pupal stage varied 
in duration from 15 to 21 days. 
Specimens collected by Mr. J. J. Davis, of this bureau, at Water- 
town, Wis., pupated on August 8. Mr. Pettit found the pupe in 
