THE CHINCH. BUG. 



PYRRHOCORID^E 



These are called Red-bugs but they are not the creatures 

 (mites) which get in human skin and cause red sores. 

 Our commonest species is Euryopthalmus ( = Largus) 

 succinctus. It is about .5 in. long and rather stout; 

 brownish black above, with red on the margins of the 

 prothorax, outer margin of front wings, trochanters, and 

 bases of femora; a fine bluish pubescence underneath. 

 The young are brilliant steel-blue, with reddish legs, and a 

 bright red spot at the base of the abdomen. Some authori- 

 ties say it is a plant-feeder and others that it feeds mainly on 

 insects and was "found to be very useful in California 

 by eating the destructive cottony cushion scale, at one 

 time threatening to destroy entirely the orange groves of 

 that state." Perhaps it does both. The Cotton-stainer 

 of the South is Dysdcrcus suturellus. 



LYG/EID.E 



About 200 species have been listed from America, north 

 of Mexico. The family has also been called Myodochidae. 



Most of us have heard of the Chinch- 

 BKssus b (plate XXVI) and all of us have helped 



leucopterus . 



pay tor it. ihese pests have cost the 



United States about half a billion dollars. The worst 

 injury has been to small grains and corn in the Mississippi 

 Valley but frequent injury is done in the East, especially 

 to timothy meadows which have stood for several years. 

 It is black and white except for the red legs and bases of 

 the antennas. Most of the adults occurring between the 

 Rockies and the Alleghanies have normally long wings; 

 in the South, East, and along the Lakes to northern 

 Illinois, short-winged individuals are usually the more 

 common. The young are yellowish or bright red, marked 

 with brownish. Adults hibernate in clumps of grass or 

 under rubbish. In early spring the females lay their 

 yellowish-white eggs (up to 500 each) on the roots or at 

 the bases of stalks, usually of grasses and grain. Even 

 the long-winged adults do not fly much but usually walk 

 from field to field. The first annual generation matures 



in 



