470 
Observations on the various Insects 
by Thomas Wal ford, Esq., F.L.S., regarding an insect that was 
destroying the wheat, supposed by the farmers of Essex and 
Suffolk to be the VVireworm. In October, 1802, Mr. Thomas 
Olley, of Stoke, near Clare, in Suffolk, showed Mr. Walibrd some 
green wheat which was dying and losing plant very fast, the reason 
of which he could not comprehend. On examining the plants, 
Mr. W. discovered three of the larvae (pi. K. fig. 2), two of which 
were in the act of destroying the wheat (fio;. 4). " With their 
projecting jaws, these insects cut round the outside grass (fig. a), 
about an inch below the surface of the soil (fig. b), to get at the 
young white shoot in the centre, which they eat : upon this vegeta- 
tion is immediately stopped, and the plant dies. I suspect that 
they first eat the flour in the grains, which has not been drawn 
up by vegetation ; for, when we touched them, they ran into the 
husks (fig. c) ; and two of the three insects I carried home in the 
husks, which appear to be their habitations, and probably the place 
where they change from the larva to their perfect state." * 
It is now upwards of forty years since these facts were promul- 
gated, and yet we know no more of the economy of this singular 
little animal than Mr. Walford did. He was inclined to think it 
might be the larva of a Staphylinus, or Kove-beetle, only that he 
considered they were entirely a carnivorous family, and the same 
objection may be made to its being the larva of a Bembidium, or 
some minute Carabus, which I suspect it to be. It is somewhat 
remarkable that one has never heard of the reappearance of this 
insect; but that may be owing to all ravages of the kind being at 
once attributed to the Wireworm, which unfortunately has hitherto 
stopped all further inquiry. 
1. Staphylinus'? or Bembidium? The colour of this larva, 
which is not a quarter of an inch long, is not mentioned ; but in all 
probability it is ochreous or tawny : the head is armed with strong 
jaws for cutting, and furnished with feelers and two small horns; 
it has six thoracic legs, terminated apparently by single claws; 
there are two rows of spines down the back, and another on each 
side of the body, which is composed of eiglit segments, besides the 
anal one, which is furnished with a sort of tail or prehensile foot, 
and two four-jointed setae or feelers, to be employed when walking 
backward, as the antennai are in advancing forward (fig. 2; fig. 3 
being the same highly magnified). 
"The injury," says Mr. Walford, "which the public sustains 
by the ravages of these insects, may in some measure be calcu- 
lated from Mr. Olley's loss in 1802 : he sowed 50 acres of a clay 
soil with wheat ; out of these 10 were destroyed by them, which 
were replanted by dibbling in one bushel of seed per acre. The 
* Linn. Trans, vol. ix. p. 157. 
