210 
Observations on the various Insects 
more membranous, deposits her eggs in the body of the worm, to 
feed upon the muscles and thus destroy this enemy to the cul- 
tivator. This discovery 1 supposed to be perfectly novel as re- 
garded the Wireworm, but on turning to Bierkander 1 find the 
following statement : — " Nature has, however, furnished allies 
against this army of vermin, as an Ichneumon, by means of its 
aculeus, or egg tube, if I may so call it, insinuates its eggs into 
many of them, so that in thirty worms which I have taken, 1 have 
found six that have been thus quartered upon. From one of these 
worms, with the loss of life of the host, six, ten, thirteen, to twenty 
guests have come out. Which Ichneumon this is I have not yet 
discovered, as the })upae put into jars have all died."* Mine 
also unfortunately all died, although I paid the greatest attention 
to them; and hoping to gain some further information upon the 
subject, I shall defer giving figures of this parasite until my next 
Memoir is published. 
The same author also says : — " The 14th of June a Wireworm 
drew from its mouth a thread 8 inches in length.'' This must 
have been a Filaria, of which I find in the ' Gardeners' Chro- 
nicle '| the following notice : — " W- W. The thread-like substance 
5 inches long, which you extracted from the body of a Wireworm, 
is an intestinal worm, belonging to the genus Filaria. Similar 
worms have been observed in various insects, but siill your fact is 
a very interesting one, showing that the filarix are found in the 
larva3 of insects." § {S) 
I believe I may here close the history of the true Wireworms. 
I trust that the descriptions and figures will enable the inquiring 
cultivator to study their economy satisfactorily, and likewise that 
the mass of information relating to the destruction of them may 
enable both the farmer and the gardener to encounter more suc- 
cessfully this great enemy to their crops and industry. 
I shall be ready to return to this subject in the spring, when it 
will be necessary to give the history of the animals which are so 
often confounded with the true Wireworms, and in the meanwhile 
I shall be extremely obliged by any information which the 
members of the Society or others engaged in agriculture may be 
able to communicate. 
Summary of the foregoing Report. 
Wireworms feed upon corn, turni])s, mangold-wurzel, potatoes, 
grass, cabbages, and garden- flowers. 
• Commun. to Board of Agric, vol. iv. \^. 414. 
•I- 11)1(1 , p. 415. X Vol. ill. J). 4.33. 
^ 1 liave seen .'•evcral of llicsc woiiiis issuiufj from the tails of beetles, 
principally I'arabidae, when tlirowii into alcohol to be preserved: Ihey were 
blown and as thick as very si out col ton. 
