83 



these thoracic markings are mistaken for the elater's eyes, and the loose articulation of 

 the thorax for the neck, I may just mention that a friend of mine brought me, one day 

 this summer, a fine large my ops, which he had just found on his window-sill, remarking 

 that he was afraid it was dead, because " its neck seemed broken." I told him to lay it 

 on its back upon my table, and the sudden snap with which it nearly sprang into his 

 face quite startled him. The Indian name for an elater (according to Dr. Fitch) is "neck- 

 breaker," or "the insect that breaks its neck," which gives a very good idea of its chief 

 characteristic. 



Perhaps the most abundant of our elaters is a dark brown one, about half an inch 

 long, named Melanotus communis. The larvae feed in wood, transform in the autumn, and 

 the beetles winter under bark or in crevices, and are very common in spring. Limonius 

 plebejus is also a brownish beetle, which is even more numerous in this vicinity. 



Occasionally large glossy black elaters are found under stones in damp localities. 

 These belong to the genus Melanactes and are remarkable for having luminous larvae. 

 Several species of Corymbites are numerous on pine-trees in summer, as C. azripennis, 

 C. hieroglyphicns and C. triundulatus ; the latter is also said to feed on the flower of the 

 rhubarb. C. vernalis, sl pretty beetle with a black thorax, and yellow elytra marked by 

 five black spots, may be found sometimes in large numbers on blossoms of the choke- 

 cherry. 



In the fourth volume of the Canadian Entomologist, an interesting account of the 

 wheat wire-worm, Agriotes mancus, is given by Mr. J. Pettit, of Grimsby, Ont., a very 

 careful observer. Mr. Pettit says : 



" For many years an insect, familiarly known among farmers as the 'wire-worm,' 

 has committed ravages from time to time among the wheat crops in different parts of the 

 Province. As the history of this insect has not hitherto been traced out, I am happy to 

 be able to make public through the pages of the Canadian Entomologist, the following 

 description of its larval and pupal states. 



"In the fall of the year 1870, so unusual an amount of damage was inflicted upon the 

 wheat crops in this vicinity by this wire- worm that I was led to try and breed it to the 

 perfect state with a view to ascertaining what species it was the larva of. By digging 

 ^ ^.v\\a\a\ \\ \ \ \ \ \ \n\n \ v \ x I about the roots of the wheat plants, I obtained 

 3 ^l^j / 1 ~Z 3j5U^T ! ' C^i aD0U t a dozen specimens (Fig. 53) which were 



s^y-tf^/m XJ placed with a few wheat plants in a large flower- 



Fig. 53. pot, where they were kept supplied with food 



by planting occasionally a small quantity of wheat. With the first cold weather they 

 ceased to eat, and were then placed in a sheltered situation until the return of warm 

 weather in spring, when they were restored to the breeding-cage. They soon gave evi- 

 dence of being alive, and possessing unimpaired appetites ; their 

 rapid consumption of the wheat plants rendered it necessary to 

 renew the supply quite as often as before. They were fed in this 

 way until the month of July, when my absence from home caused 

 them to be neglected ; on my return there was not a vestige of 

 food left. Thinking that the worms had probably died of starva- 

 tion, I paid no further attention to them until the 26th of August, 

 when, on removing a part of the earth from the pot, a pupa (Fig. 

 54) was disclosed, and on the 3rd of September the first imago ap- 

 peared, which proved to be a specimen of Agriotes mancus (Say). 

 Fig- 54. ^ s only two more specimens came out during the remainder of Sep- 



tember, I turned the earth out of the pot and carefully examined it. The inspection re- 

 vealed seven specimens of the imago in the little cells in which they had transformed, and 

 one larva. 



" Among the larvae collected, I had noticed one less than half the size of the others 

 and evidently much younger, which would account for the one still in the larval state. It 

 had attained, however, a size fully equal to that of the others when first brought in during 

 the previous autumn ; and hence I have formed the opinion that the larval state does not 

 last longer than three years. This opinion has since been strengthened by the observation 

 of a large number of larva which appeared readily separable into two sizes, corresponding 



