time they feed voraciously, and are not very particular as to what they eat.  Their muscular power renders them expert in burrowing, and they are well protected by their horny jackets.  When their term of feeding is completed, they descend to a considerable depth and change into the chrysalis state, from which they come forth as jumping beetles in the course of July and August, a certain proportion remaining in the ground to complete their final change in spring.  Their power of destruction is then at an end.  They resort to flowers, lead a merry life for a short time, and when they pass away leave plenty of eggs to continue the race of Wireworms.

For practical purposes the Wireworm may be regarded as inhabiting every kind of soil and consuming every kind of crop.  The crops it is most partial to are Grass, Potatoes, Turnips, and the juicy stems of all kinds of cereals.  The larvae may be trapped by burying in the ground pieces of Potato, or better still thick slices of Beet root; the spots to be marked, and the traps examined every few days, when the Wireworms can be destroyed.  Superphosphate sown along the drills with seed has saved spring-sown crops from destruction; and Vaporite, a proprietary article, has also been used with marked success.  The latter gives off a gas smelling of naphthalene which kills the Wireworms.  Soot is a well-known remedy, and by its use the crops are also benefited.

==Woodlice== are very destructive but easily caught, and they may be completely eradicated by perseverance.  When a frame or pit is infested, they can be destroyed wholesale by pouring boiling water down next the brickwork or the woodwork in the middle of the day.  If this procedure does not make a clearance, recourse must be had to trapping.  In common with Earwigs, they love dryness, darkness, and a snug retreat; but while a mere home suffices for Earwigs, a home with food is demanded by Woodlice.  Take a thumb pot, quite dry and clean.  In it place a fresh-cut slice of Potato or Apple, fill up with dry moss, and turn the whole thing over on a bed in a frame or pit.  Thus you have devised a Woodlouse trap, and next morning you may knock the vermin out of it into a vessel full of hot water, or adopt any other mode of killing that may be convenient.  Fifty traps may be prepared in a hundred minutes; and those who are determined to get rid of Woodlice may soon make an end of them.

==Rats and Mice==.—­Traps are efficient while they are new, and almost any reasonably good contrivance will answer for a time, but will fail at last, or at least for a season.  To keep down Rats and Mice effectually there must be invented a succession of new modes of action, for these creatures—­Rats especially—­are so clever that they soon see through our devices, which then fail of effect.  Generally speaking, two rules may be prescribed.  In the first place it is imprudent to fill up their holes or stop their runs; let them have their way.