190 
Observations on the various Insects 
in the field ; but many of those which had been deposited from 
one to four years previously in the grass or layer are consecu- 
tively hatching, and the larvae are gradually increasing in size and 
appetite, and consequently become daily more mischievous. If 
a corn-crop follow turnips, in a field infested by the Wireworms, 
it is astonishing if it escape being swept off entirely, for Bierkander 
says, " In the spring and autumn they have good appetites, and I 
have often observed that a single worm has bitten from eight, 
twelve, to twenty stalks in one place ; and if one destroys so much, 
what may not thousands do?" For the same reason, it is almost 
useless to re-sow when a crop has been destroyed by the Wire- 
worms, unless the soil be first freed from them by repeated 
ploughings, when rooks, starlings, poulti*y, game, and frosts may 
diminish their numbers ; and the farmer must remember that the 
Wireworms cannot increase in number unless fresh eggs be laid 
by the Elaters, and of this there can be no danger from the end 
of September to the end of March. 
We will now take a review of the crops, &c. which suffer from 
their attacks, as well as of the soils most affected by them ; but it 
may, I think, be received as an axiom, that wherever grass will 
grow, the Wireworms may be found, for the roots of the various 
species afford sufficient nourishment for their support, and con- 
sequently pastures and meadow-lands are, I expect, never free 
from them ; and thus it follows that newly broken-up lands so 
constantly swarm with this pest. I believe they are most to be 
dreaded in dry seasons, yet that they cannot be kept alive without 
moisture I am convinced by experience ; and this is the reason 
that the worms are often found under stones in gravelly situations, 
exposed downs, dry heaths, iS:c. 
Oats being sown upon land recently broken up are generally 
the crop which suffers the most severely. Dicksoir* says: " When 
this sort of grain is cultivated on such leys as are newly broken- 
up, there may frequently be danger, especially where the land 
has been long in the slate of "-rass, both from the destructive 
attacks of insects, and the soil becoming too light, open, and 
porous, from the decay of the grassy materials for the supjiort of 
the plant," Such are their ravages, that sometimes it compels 
the cliscouraged farmer to laydoun valuable land as pasture to 
a very great disadvantage; and in 1842, in many parts of Eng- 
land, the oat-crops suflered so severely from the ravages of the 
Wireworms, that it became necessary to plough them up and sow 
a second time. 
WlicM the season is dry and cold in the early sj)ring months, the 
Bur/ei/-c\o[)s are I'recjuently greatly injured by the attacks of the 
Wireworms, which is indicated by the young jjlants changing from 
* Piacticiil Agi'icuHiirc, vol. i. ]). 582. 
