REPORT OF THE DIVISION OF ENTOMOLOGY AND BOTANY 51 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



except to the late oats, of which, owing to the late season, there was quite a large 

 acreage. The damage was general over the county of Welland.' 



Prof. F. M. Webster, of the Bureau of Entomology, Washington, D.C., who is one 

 of the leading American economic entomologists, and a high authority on insects 

 affecting cereals, writes, in the Annual Report of the Entomological Society of 

 Ontario, for 1898 : ' While the Chinch Bug, in all probability originally a neo-tropical 

 species, has as you know, spread northward over a portion of the Dominion of Canada, 

 and while it has not as yet been known to depredate upon your crops to any notice- 

 able degree, yet it may do so in the future, in which case it may be expected to first 

 make its presence known in your timothy meadows rather than in your grain fields, 

 and quite likely will work considerable injury before it is recognized by your agricul- 

 turists.' 



The Chinch Bug when mature is about one-fifth of an inch long. It is blackish 

 in colour, with conspicuous white wing-covers. In the immature form, the young 

 bugs are mostly red, but the colour varies in the different stages. The winter is 

 passed in the adult state. In the United States the mature insects hibernate in clumps 

 of grass, under pieces of board, loose bark, stones, &c., and in the first warm days of 

 spring appear again, pair, and the females soon begin to lay their eggs, according to 

 most writers, either about or below the surface of the ground, among the roots of grass 

 or grain. Prof. Webster says : * It is more than likely that this varies with the condi- 

 tion, as the eggs are not infrequently found above ground about the bases of the 

 plants, and even upon the leaves, though I have never found them there, but have 

 often found them under the sheaths of grasses.' The eggs hatch in from two to three 

 weeks. In most areas in North America, where the Chinch Bug is destructive, there 

 are at least two broods, but in northeastern Ohio, which is just across the lake from 

 the Canadian border, Prof. Webster doubted the occurrence of a second brood of 

 young. 



The Chinch Bug feeds on a number of different plants. It is recorded as feeding 

 on all kinds of grain, several of the native grasses, as well as on broom-corn, sorghum, 

 chicken-corn, rice, &c. In the western portions of the United States the damage is 

 done chiefly to wheat, barley, rye and com. 



The remedies recommended for this insect are the cleaning up of all refuse in 

 autumn which might serve as hibernating quarters for the adults ; the making of deep 

 furrows around infested fields at the time the insects migrate in which they can be 

 killed by an application of kerosene emulsion; and the spraying of the outer edges of 

 the fields with the same material when the insects are leaving one crop to attack 

 another. If this latter is done it will stop the invasion for the time being and give 

 the farmer a chance to plough another deep furrow along the edge of the field to be 

 protected. The Chinch Bug is treated of very fully by Prof. P. M. Webster, in 

 Bulletin No. 15, new series, of the Bureau of Entomology, Washington, D.C. 



The Grain Aphis, Macrosiphum granaria Kirby, which caused considerable alarm 

 in the northvv'estern provinces in 1907, owing to the supposition that it was the so- 

 called ' Green Bug,' was in 1908 very prevalent in many parts of Ontario and 

 Quebec. Towards the end of August reports of its presence in large numbers began 

 to come in, the complaints referring to its attacks on wheat. In his report, as 

 Entomologist and Botanist, on the insects of the year 1907, the late Dr. Fletcher says : 

 ' Unfortunately for the Grain Aphis there is no practical remedy which can be applied 

 in a wholesale manner, but Prof. F. M. Webster, who has devoted much attention to 

 the insects which attack grain crops, has constantly drawn attention to the great 

 advantage of practising good agricultural methods in working land, such as the 

 adoption of a regular rotation of crops, so as to keep up the fertility of the soil, and 

 advises that care should be tai<:en to sow grain at the best time to secure a vigorous 

 growth, which will enable the plants to withstand the attacks of the aphis sufficiently 

 long to allow the natural parasites which always sooner or later appear, to increase, 



16— 4i 



