Wire-worms, the grubs of click beetles (Elater or Agriotes), perhaps the most injurious of farm pests, destroying root, grain, and fodder crops. They are called wire-worms 'from their likeness in of plants, in the ground or in the axils of basal leaves ; the grub remains for several years (three to five) as such, burrowing in the ground during the frost of winter, but at other times hardly ceasing from voracious attacks on the roots and underground stems of all sorts of crops. Eventually they pupate in the soil, whence the adult beetle emerges. Common forms are Agriotes obscurus, A. lineatus, A. sputator. They are not to be confused with millipedes, which they slightly resemble. For prevention Miss Ormerod recommends lime-compost, guano and superphosphate, soot, nitrate of soda and salt, and other obnoxious dressings, summer fallow, and burning all rubbish, clod-crushing and heavy rolling. On a small scale slices of potatoes or turnips may be successfully used as traps. Among natural enemies of wire-worms moles, rooks, plovers, and pheasants are important.