OF INJURIOUS INSECTS. 
9 
be found infesting sheltered gardens. A search under dry eaves, 
rough boardings or palings, and in the sheltered nooks which abound 
in garden ground, but are comparatively absent in open-field cultiva¬ 
tion, will at times bring scores and hundreds of pupae to light, and 
serve to diminish the pest appreciably. At Welbeck Abbey, N. Notts, 
the first specimen was noticed by Mr. Bolfe, on the 22nd of May, the 
general appearance of the vernal brood occurring from the 3rd to the 
24th of June, and of the larvae from the 27tli of June till the end of 
July, the number of imagos, and more especially of the larvae, being 
less than in the two preceding years. The autumnal brood (which in 
1876 had been numerous and destructive) was scarce and late, the 
appearance of imagos ranging from the 12th of August to the 15th of 
September, that of the larvae from the end of August to the end of 
September, and little injury being caused. The weather is noted as 
being exceptionally cold, inclement, and sunless throughout the 
summer, until the second week in September. 
Agriotes obscurus. 
6. Agriotes, var. sp. Wireworm. At Bury, Mr. Kaye mentions 
that a solution of carbonate of soda, in the proportion of about two 
ounces to sixteen quarts of water, applied three or more times from 
the beginning of May, to the beginning of June, is found a good way to 
clear the ground. At Knebworth, Mr. Benj. Brown notes Wireworm 
(.Agriotes obscurus ) in considerable numbers, as attacking the Barley 
sown after dead fallow. He drilled Lawes’ Turnip manure with 
the bulk of the field, and on this the Barley grew rapidly away 
from the Wireworm; whilst on two pieces (each seven feet wide), left 
across the field without the manure, more than half the plants were 
destroyed. This difference is noted as having been observed on 
previous occasions. On the 28th of April Mr. Edward A. Fitch 
noticed an attack of Wireworm on somewhat more than thirty acres 
of Barley, which had been sown towards the end of March, after 
summer fallow, near Maldon, in Essex; whilst Barley sown in the 
same field on the 16th and 17tli of April, and not then up, was not 
afterwards affected by it. This land he had manured with sixteen to 
a 2 
