30 CORN AND GRASS. 
Click Beetles and Wireworms. Elater (. Agriotes) lineatus 
(and other species). 
Elater lineatus, &c. 
1 and 2, E. lineatus ; 3 and 4, E. obscurus ; 5 and 6, E. sputator, nat. size and mag.; 
7, larva of E. sputator ?; 8 and 9, larvae of E. lineatus , nat. size and mag.; 
10, pupa. Lines show natural size. 
The following carefully-detailed note, sent by Mr. James Davies, 
Bollington, near Altrincham, Cheshire, draws attention to operations 
sometimes completely failing to clear the ground of Wireworm (or 
other insect vermin), because they are at that time gone down too deep 
in the earth for measures of cultivation to reach them. Mr. Davies 
wrote as follows :— 
“ Three years ago [that is, at Christmas, 1880,] I had a field of 
grass-land which I intended to plough for Oats. The frost was very 
severe. When the frost left we had a good deal of rain (so much as 
to prevent ploughing on broken land), so I began ploughing this grass- 
field as soon as the frost was out, ploughing in different parts of the field, 
setting ridges, and ploughing round each.* 
“ By the time we had done this much the broken land had dried, 
and we went to plough it, reserving the rest of the grass for another wet 
time. We finished the grass in the beginning of March, and in due 
time the field was sown with Oats. 
“ Then there was to be seen this difference. On the land first 
ploughed the Wireworm took nearly every Oat, and we had to sow it again. 
On the land ploughed later there was hardly any damage. 
“ I accounted for the fact in this way—probably the severe frost 
caused the worms to go down into the earth before it to a depth from 
which they had not risen ichen the first ploughing ivas made, and (probably 
* A plan accompanying showed the grass field divided into seven strips, of which 
the three ploughed just after the frost lay alternately between the four ploughed 
later on. 
