4 BULLETIN 156, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
has been noted! in which a wireworm | Lacon (Agrypnus) murinus 
L.] lived in the stemach of a child. Most of our common species lay 
their eggs on sod or very weedy land, but the wireworms (Corymbctes 
spp.) of the dry-farming country of the Pacific Northwest are severe 
pests on land that has been seeded to wheat, by the summer fallow 
method, for the past 15 years, and, as this land was originally sage- 
brush prairie, it probably never was in sod. 
Several distinct kinds of true wireworms are destructive to. cereal 
and forage crops in the United States; and since, as has already been 
stated, the different kinds vary more 
or less in their life histories, there is 
consequently a variation in the method 
of control as reconimended in the fol- 
lowing pages of this bulletin. It is 
therefore quite necessary to determine 
the identity of the wireworm. and to 
meet this necessity the many species 
of importance as pests to cereal and 
forage crops are treated separately. 
THE WHEAT WIREWORM. 
(Agriotes mancus (Say), fig. 2.) 
The adult of the wheat wireworm is 
a small brown beetle a little over one- 
fourth of an inch in length, quite 
robust, and moderately covered with 
very short, fine hair. The larva is 
Fie. 2.—The wheat wireworm : ‘ 
(Agriotes mancus) : a, Adult bee- pale yellow in color, VERY: evenly cylin- 
tle; b, larva; c, side view of last drical, and very highly polished. 
eae aah ce ge a ane stcevel srl grown the larva measures 
about an inch in length and is about 
as thick as the lead in a lead pencil. These wireworms will be 
readily recognized by the singly pointed ninth abdominal segment 
and the two black spots on the upper side of this segment near its 
base. 
This is one of the most common wireworms of the noreheaetenn and 
middle western United States. A report of this species as a pest in 
the dry-farming regions of Washington State * is undoubtedly a 
1 eadnere: G. El tilfiilde af Coleopterlarvers tilhold i tarmkanalen hos et Menneske. 
In Entomologisk Tidskrift, v. 11, p. 77 —80, 1890. ; 
2Scobey, J. O'B. Wireworms. Washington Experiment Station. (State Agricultural 
College and School of Science.) Bulletin 4, p. 75-80, 3 figs., May, 1892. 
