March, 1903.] BUSCK : NOTES ON YPONO.M EUTID.«. 59 



labial palpi very long, porrected ; terminal joint short. Maxillary palpi present, 

 moderately developed, appressed and obscured from view by the labial palpi. Ocelli 

 absent ? 



No American species has as yet been discovered and the genus is 

 represented at present by the single European species mucroyiella Sco- 

 poli, a good series of which is in the U. S. National Museum. 



THE PRICE OF DAIRY PRODUCTS AS INFLU- 

 ENCING THE ABUNDANCE OF SOME INSECTS. 



By F. M. Web.ster. 



The economic entomologist sometimes meets with curious and far- 

 reaching relationships in the matter of influences of certain factors that 

 it would at first seem preposterous to associate with insects at all. The 

 threadbare story involving the maiden of uncertain age, cats, mice, 

 bumble-bees and red clover seed, however, sometimes finds a parallel. 



That the price of dairy products could have any influence on chinch 

 bugs, Blissus Iciicoptcrus, or any other species not an animal parasite, 

 at first seenis improbable, yet such appears to be the case, so closely 

 are insects connected with some of our industries ; and as a seeming 

 accentuation of this fact, we have a similar combination of interests in 

 a different i)art of the country, involving another insect in jjrecisely 

 the same manner and with the same result. 



The dairyman cultivates comparatively little land ; prefers perma- 

 nent pastures and meadows to crop rotation, for the reason that the 

 additional labor required to change his crop from grass to grain and 

 back to grass again increases the expense of his business, without ma- 

 terially adding to his profits. In the northern i)ortion of the coimtry, 

 timothy is the favorite, and, in fact, almost universal meadow grass. 

 In previous numbers of this Journal, I have called attention to the two 

 forms or races of chinch bugs, and pointed out the partiality of the 

 eastern or short-winged form for the roots of timothy as a food plant, 

 while the western or long-winged race seldom attacks this grass, and 

 never if it can procure other food. 



The short-winged or brachypterous race, once it becomes estab- 

 lished in a timothy meadow, does not leave it, but continues to increase 

 and lives by extracting the juices from the bulbous root, with the re- 

 sult that the plant discolors and dies. Timothy meadows, within the 



