48 
» 
stomachs of twenty-seven of these birds, shot in April and Mav 
Llatendae amounting to three and one half per cent, of E 
food. Of the remaining species of birds known to eat them none 
take enough to make more than a fraction of one per cent of 
them food except, perhaps, the crow. Dr. Fitch says that “wire: 
flvorite a 'fo, ,J?'r! 8 ^ 111 °7’ th ? sna PP in S beetles, constitute the 
lavonte food and principal sustenance of these birds [crows].”* 
PREVENTION AND REMEDY. 
I rob ably no class of agricultural insects has had prescribed 
for it a longer list of artificial remedies than the wireworms 
and certainly no such list has been of less practical value After 
SCT .“t ": ith their work in this count,y 
and in Laiope their injuries continue at present practically un¬ 
checked by any treatment consistent with the methods of Ameri¬ 
can agriculture. KI1 
vimw n + PO 'i° n c-° f the “ 08 * deadl y so rt applied to corn pre¬ 
vious to planting, or to food lures distributed through the 
ground tor the purpose of drawing off the attention of these 
sec.s fiom corn, have proven almost entirely valueless, both 
n my experience and in the more elaborate trials made bv 
Comstock ana Slmgerland in New York. Late fall plowing 
breaking open the pupal chambers within which the recently 
- n f°™ ed adults pass the winter, will probably have the eh 
^ f( 0 | dnnl " lsh generally the number of these beetles during 
Slim l that 8 ih y p ea a H 0 K mS e, 0Ck and Slin g erlaad have also ascer! 
tamed that the adult beetles are susceptible to certain poisons 
■! a | "’l°!’ K - y distributed with certain attractive kinds of food; 
d \ have to suggest a systematic rotation intended to inte^ 
P ,,”" gr ass and corn a crop not vulnerable to the wire- 
” Otherwise we are substantially without a hint of any 
I I!? he ravages of these insects other than 
ie time-honoied resource of the corn farmer, namely, late plant- 
thf first'nla° r r- 1, JR S r, CO ’ ld • ve ? r after sod ’ and J & te replanting if 
T 18 destroyed. In the latter case it is well to 
It'? rows, allowing the first corn to stand as long 
as is consistent with a proper cultivation of the field. All the 
corn W ?f t!f be , n8 , at . the time concentrated in the old hills of 
ihnl’ ti 1686 be destr °.ved when the field is planted the second 
t ,pl/rl f' VU 'i e i WOr '. nS stl11 active in the earth are forced to at¬ 
tack the freshly planted kernels as their only food resource. 
fir,s1 . experiments with poisons for the wireworms of which 
have definite record, were made at my office in 1885 and 
moloffv” fp e i8i m my i‘';YcK ell ; U n eOUS Essa - vs on Ec °uomic Ento- 
° °fe«y (P- 18), printed the following year. 
RnaWW m Maj ’ 1888 ' we fed thirty-seven wireworms on corn 
soaked toi seven days m a mixture of water and Paris green. 
ie corn was covered with a coating of the green poison, and 
*Eleventh Rep. (Trans. N. Y. State Agr. Soc., (1866), p. 542. 
