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JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 17 
out easily can be used, and the adults placed in these on a little damp 
soil, either in pairs or in numbers. As soon as a pair of adults are noticed 
in copulation, they can be removed in situ and placed in salve tins. 
For all rearing purposes with wireworms the ordinary salve tin, 
either with plain or paper label lids, of the two ounce size seem to fulfill 
all the requirements. Smaller sizes will not contain enough soil and dry 
out too easily, while larger sizes are unnecessary, unless one wishes them 
for field collecting. 
In order to save time in picking eggs from the soil of the salve tins 
after oviposition, the soil should be sifted through fine brass screen of 
mesh sufficiently small to retain the eggs of the species under study. A 
common milk screen of 40 mesh to the inch is about right for most of our 
economic species. Small deep round cake pans about 10 inches in 
diameter with false bottoms can be purchased cheaply and the screen 
easily soldered to the bottom. Soil should be as damp as will sift 
through this screen. After a female has oviposited a lot of eggs in this 
tin of fine soil, the contents can be sifted again and all the eggs retained 
free from soil. 
Eggs can easily be counted by placing them in a shallow coffee can 
cover painted a dull black and using a tally counter operated by foot 
power. As soon as counted, the eggs should be placed on sterile watch 
glasses, either with or without filter paper, and the watch glasses placed 
in sterile petri dishes containing a little water. This provides a moist 
chamber without bringing an excess of moisture in contact with the 
eggs and when kept in a humid cellar will hatch the eggs normally. 
Eggs can also be left in the fine soil in salve tins until all the larvae have 
emerged, when it will be easy to sift out the newly hatched larvae. 
Care is necessary in the egg stage to prevent molds from entering the 
dishes and killing the eggs. Since the mold often enters the dishes with a 
slight amount of soil that sticks to the eggs, it is almost impossible to 
prevent some of the eggs from being lost in this way. The ordinary 
china marking grease pencils are very useful in marking on the glass of 
the dishes and also for marking the salve tins. 
When the larvae begin to emerge from the eggs they should be re¬ 
moved daily from the dishes to finely sifted soil in the salve tins again, 
with their preferred food. Sprouting wheat with its fine rootlets serves, 
well for those species destructive to grains. Sliced potatoes or sugar 
beets can be used for other species. The soil in these tins should be 
changed as often as necessary to renew the food and prevent them from 
drying out. By using the finely sifted soil again, the larvae can easily be 
