37 
was shown by the sudden withering of the infested stalks. About 
six per cent, of the corn in the field had already been killed in 
this way. It was further obtained by us April 27, 1886, in an 
old corn field among specimens collected by following a plow. 
July 4, 1889, it was sent to us from Prophetstown, Illinois, 
with a report of serious injury to corn and potatoes, plants of 
which withered and died under the attack. A field of one hun¬ 
dred acres over which they seemed well distributed, was reclaimed 
swamp land, recently brought under cultivation. Finally, I 
found it near Sycamore. Illinois, on the 11th of July, 1889, in 
a field tiled and drained the year before and broken up in Sep¬ 
tember from a marshy sod. In this field it had completely 
killed the corn in small patches, and notably crippled its growth 
in others. 
The larva has further occurred in our collections from pastures 
and meadows at Champaign. It is not nearly so abundant in 
Illinois as some other wireworms, only about one eighth of 
our office collections representing this species. In New York, 
however, it seems to be the commonest wireworm known, mak¬ 
ing ninety-one per cent, of some 10,000 larvae sent to Professor 
Comstock, of Cornell University, for experimental uses. 
It has been published as a corn insect only in a brief note in 
'‘Insect Life” (Vol. III., p. 246), by Mr. C. A. Hart, an assistant 
of this office, whose statement was based upon our breeding- 
cage work and collections. 
Its injuries to wheat, though doubtless occurring in Illinois, 
have not come to the notice of myself or my assistants. It has, 
however, been reported from wheat fields in Indiana by Mr. F. 
M. Webster,* infesting there lands of various previous history. 
An older article by Mr. J. Pettit t gives a full account of its 
attack on wheat. 
The length of time passed by this species in the larva, or 
wireworm, state cannot be given with certainty. Mr. J. Pettit, 
of Ontario, who was the first to rear it from the larva to the 
adult, was of the opinion that the larval state did not last 
longer than three years.t Messrs. Comstock and Slingerland, in 
their work on wireworms at the Cornell University Experiment 
Station, 1889-1891, from extensive and careful breeding-cage ex¬ 
periments—one at least of which continued through two years 
and two months—arrived at the same conclusion. They also as¬ 
certained that as the summer advanced the larvae became gradu¬ 
ally less destructive, and that by November 1 (probably earlier 
in the fields) they cease feeding and go deeper into the ground, 
where they remain without food for five or six months. It is 
* Rep. U. S. Dept. Agr., 1887, p. 153. 
t Can. En*., Vol. IV. (1872), p. 3. 
I “Description of the Wheat Wireworm.” Can. Ent. Vol. IV. (1872), pp. 3-7. This article 
contains figures and descriptions of the larva and pupa by Dr. Horn, from specimens 
■reared by Mr. Pettit. 
