WIREWORMS ATTACKING CEREAL AND FORAGE CROPS. 3 
forage crops confine their attention to the seed, roots, and under- 
ground stems and are exclusively subterranean, with the single excep- 
tion recorded by Mr. E. O. G. Kelly, of this office, wherein he mentions 
finding a species (Jonocrepidius vespertinus Fab.) damaging wheat 
at Wellington, Kans., by boring in the hollow of the wheat stems 
and not among the roots. 3 
Their depredations are first to be noticed, with the exception of 
the cotton and corn wireworm, immediately after seeding, when they 
attack the seed, eating out the inside and leaving only the hull. 
When they are very numerous they often consume all the seed, mak- 
ing reseeding necessary, and in severe outbreaks a second reseeding 
is sometimes made before a stand is obtained. Aside from the extra 
labor and cost of the seed, this delays the planting of the crop, and 
if it be corn, in the Northern States the season is too short to ma- 
ture so late-planted a crop and, except for the fodder, it is a failure. 
Where wireworms are present, even in very small numbers, corn 
will make a poor stand, which will necessitate the planting-in of 
missing hills. In some regions where these insects are quite numer- 
ous it is customary to sow three or four times the amount of seed 
that would normally be necessary in order to get a good stand. 
KINDS OF WIREWORMS. 
Several hundred species of Elateride occur in North America. 
They vary enormously in their habits, some forms living in dead and 
rotten wood (Alaus, Elater, Adelocera, etc.). Alaus has also been 
recorded as boring in solid wood, though the writer is inclined to 
discredit this observation, and other species live under moss (Seri- 
cosomus). A number of species abound in heavy moist soil filled 
with humus (Melanotus, Agriotes, etc.), while some prefer well- 
drained soils (Corymbites), and still others (Horistonotus) are most 
destructive on high sandy land which is very poor in humus. Many 
wireworms have been recorded as predaceous (Alaus, Hemirhipus, 
Adelocera, etc.). I am told by Mr. T. H. Jones, recently associated 
with the Rio Piedras Sugar Planters’ Experiment Station, that the 
large luminous elaterid (Pyrophorus luminosus Mliger) of the West 
Indies is a decidedly beneficial insect, as it feeds on the Lachnosterna 
larvie in the sugar-cane fields. Through the kindness of Mr. G. N. 
Wolcott and Mr. R. H. Van Zwalenburg I now have (October, 1914) a 
Pyrophorus larva from Cuba, one from Jamaica, and several from 
Mayaguez, P. R. All of these larve are living and apparently thriv- 
ing on the larve of our native Lachnosternas. That this insect may 
some day be introduced into the southern United States as a natural 
enemy of Lachnosterna is not at all improbable. At least one instance 
