30 
i 
fest this crop, as do other species as well. Rye, barley, and 
oats also suffer from wireworm attacks. Dr. Fitch also found 
them burrowing in timothy bulbs. Larvse taken from a dense 
■clover sod and placed in our breeding cages, where they were 
supplied only with grass and clover, gave us imagos of Asaphes 
decoloratus. 
Among root crops, potatoes often suffer from being bored in¬ 
to and by having the surface gnawed and corroded by the! 
worms; but turnips, it is said, appear to be more infested by 
them than any other root crop. 
Besides the crops already mentioned Dr. Fitch names the fol¬ 
lowing,, which the wireworms are known to attack or are re¬ 
corded as attacking: mangel-wurzel, cabbage, carrots, beets,j 
onions, lettuce, rape, hops,' strawberries, pinks, carnations, 
dahlias, lobelias, and numerous other garden flowers. They have 
also been reported to me by a horticultural friend as destroying 
planted peach pits in the earth. 
The injurious species agree fairly well in the main features of 
their life history, changing to the. dormant puprn in the earth 
in July or sometimes in August, and changing again some three 
or four weeks later to the brown or reddish beetles commonly 
known as ‘‘click beetles’’ or “jumping jacks”—hard, somewhat 
hairy insects, of slender oval form, distinguished at once by 
their peculiar habit of springing into the air with a sudden 
Flick when placed upon their backs. A large part of these fully 
developed beetles remain under ground until spring, enjoying 
there the protection of the oval earthen cavity or cell formed 
by the larva as a preparation for pupation. A part, however, 
come forth from the ground in fall, passing the winter in 
sheltered places, and the remainder emerge in spring, laying 
their eggs most commonly in grass lands in the earth. Of their 
subsequent life history little is yet definitely known. It seems 
certain that all live more than one year as wireworms in the 
earth, and observation of the various sizes of larvge of the same 
species to be found in the field at once, usually supports the 
common impression that the period of life in tiie larval stage 
does not extend beyond two years; a fact which, taken in con¬ 
nection with the death and decay of grass roots the first year 
after breaking up the sod, serves to explain the greater damage 
done by wireworms the second year the ground is in corn. The 
number of wireworms haying been little diminished since the 
€rop was changed, and their original food having practically 
disappeared, they are compelled to concentrate upon the corn— 
either the newly planted seed or the young plant while it is still 
very small. 
The species of wireworms have by no means all been identified 
by breeding, but a good beginning has been made in this useful 
work at my own office and at the Cornell University Experiment 
Station. As a present aid to discrimination of forms I here pre¬ 
sent an outline of distinctive characters drawn up by my office 
assistant, Mr. C. A. Hart. 
