530 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
WIREWORMS. ABOUND IN LOW, DAMP AND PEATY GROUNDS. 
upon ft blackish ground. The antennae, feelers and legs tiro paler, of a dull yellowish or 
reddish brown. The surface above and beneath is coated over with fine, short, incumbent 
hairs of an ash gray color. Tho head is slightly convex, with close and confluent punc¬ 
tures, its anterior edge rounded. Tho antenna) if turned back will reach tho base of 
the wing-covers. Their first joint is largest, the second is smallest and only half as long 
as the third; tho fourth and following joints aro compressed, triangular, widening from 
their bases to their tips, where they are cut off transversely, thus giving them a resem¬ 
blance to tho teeth of a saw; the last joint is shaped like the head of a spear with tho 
base outward. Tho thorax is convex, scarcoly longer than wide, its opposite sides parallel 
at base and then curving regularly inward to the anterior angles; the surface with 
numerous, deep punctures, which become moro denso and confluent towards the outer 
sides; a shallow impressed line along the middle, which does not reaojh tho anterior edge; 
basal angles prolonged backward and slightly outward into stout spines, which are blunt at 
their tips, and have two elevated lines on their upper surface, the inner line boing very slender 
and minute, their outer sido showing a deep groove between two elovated lines; a short, 
impressed line on tho hind edge of tho thorax. Scutel broad oval, almost oircular, its 
surface closely punctured. Wing-covers with rows of deep punctures, the intervening 
spaces flat and with very minuto punctures; suture sometimes palor, roddish brown. 
Underside unicolor with the upper end with similar glossiness, punctures and pubesconse. 
Legs dull reddish brown, at least on their inner sides; feet distinctly five-jointed, tho first 
joint double the length of the following ones, tho fourth joint smallest, tho fifth more 
slender and longest, and ending in a pair of olaws, which are toothed like a comb along 
their undersides. 
With the expectation that I shall be able to ascertain the beetles 
by which are produced some of the other more common kinds of 
wireworms which we meet with in the soil, I defer to another 
occasion a further description of our species. It remains for us to 
review the different kinds of vegetation which falls a prey to the 
wireworms, and tho remedies which have been resorted to and 
recommended for opposing them. 
Wireworms arc liable to occur everywhere in the soil, there 
being no situation, probably, in which they may not at times be 
found. But some situations are moro favorable to them than 
others. The low, moist, cold grounds adjacent to marshes and 
streams of water, are situations in which they uniformly appear to 
be most numerous. Those low grounds especially which are of a 
peaty quality, of a black color, and abounding in vegetable mat¬ 
ter, appear to be most thronged with these worms. Says S. 
Brown, of North Wilmington, Mass., in the Boston Cultivator, 
July 27, 18G1 : “ Last September I plowed a piece of bound-out 
pasture ground. A part of it was a clay colored, sandy loam, the 
rest a damp, black soil. In May it was again plowed, manured 
in tho hill, and planted with corn. Tho wireworms destroyed 
every grain planted in the black soil, and left that planted on the 
light colored soil unmolested.” And one of Mr. Curtis’s inform¬ 
ants states that on the lower parts of fields bordering on marshes, 
