544 HEMIPTERA. 



even on the extreme summit of Mount Washington, in 

 Auguit. 



Dr. Shimer in his "Notes" on the chinch bug, says that it 

 "attained the maximum of its development in the summer of 

 1864, in the extensive wheat and corn fields of the valley of the 

 Mississippi ; and in that single year three-fourths of the wheat 

 and one-half of the corn crop were destroyed throughout many 

 extensive districts, comprising almost the entire North-west, 

 with an estimated loss of more than one hundred millions of 

 dollars in the currency that then prevailed," while Mr. Walsh 

 estimates the loss, from the ravages of this insect in Illinois 

 alone, in 1850, to have been four millions of dollars. 



In the summer of 1865, the progeny of the broods of the 

 preceding year were almost entirely swept off by an epidemic 

 disease, so few being left that on the 22d of August, Dr. 

 Shimer found it "almost impossible to find even a few cabinet 

 specimens of chinch bugs alive " where they were so abundant 

 the year before. "During the summer of 1866 the chinch bugs 

 were very scarce in all the early spring, and up to near the 

 harvest I was not able, with the most diligent search, to find 

 one. At harvest I did succeed in finding a few in some locali- 

 ties." "This disease among the chinch bugs was associated 

 with the long-continued wet, cloudj^, cool weather that pre- 

 vailed during a greater portion of the period of their develop- 

 ment, and doubtless was in a measure produced by deficient 

 light, heat and electricity, combined with an excessive humidity 

 of the atmosphere." In 1868 it again, according to the Edi- 

 tors of the "American Entomologist," "did considerable dam- 

 age in certain counties in Southern Illinois and especially 

 in South-west Missouri." Fig. 548 represents the AntJiocoris 

 insicliosus Say, called the False Chinch bug ; it is often mis- 

 taken for the chinch bug, with which it is sometimes found 

 associated. 



In the "Coreid.ne" the scutellum is still of the usual size; 

 the antennae are four-jointed ; while the basal joint of the beak 

 is generally the longest. 



Westwood states that the Coreus marginatus of Europe " in 

 flight makes a humming noise as loud as the hive bee," and 

 the eggs of this species have been observed by Audouin to be 



