172 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



yard, and similar preparations, have, with this intent, been 

 applied with benefit. 



The wheat-fields and corn-fields of the South and West 

 often suffer severely from the depredations of certain minute 

 bugs, long known there by the name of chinch-bugs, which 

 fortunately have not yet been observed in New England.* It 

 is not improbable, however, that they may spread in this 

 direction, and attack our growing grain and other crops. In 

 anticipation of such a sad event, and to gratify a curiosity 

 that has been expressed concerning these offensive insects, I 

 venture to offer a few remarks upon them. Attention seems 

 early to have been directed to them. They are mentioned in 

 the eleventh volume of Young's " Annals of Agriculture," 

 published, I believe, about 1788. From this work Messrs. 

 Kirby and Spence probably obtained the following account, 

 contained in the fij-st volume of their interesting " Introduction 

 to Entomology." " America suffers in its wheat and maize 

 from the attack of an insect, which, for what reason I know 

 not, is called the chinch-bug fly. It appears to be apterous, 

 and is said in scent and color to resemble the bed-bug. They 

 travel in immense columns from field to field, like locusts, 

 destroying everything as they proceed; but their injuries are 

 confined to the States south of the 40th degree of north lati- 

 tude. From this account," add Kirby and Spence, "the depre- 

 dator here noticed should belong to the tribe Geocoriscc, Latr. ; 

 but it seems very difficult to conceive how an insect that lives 

 by suction, and has no mandibles, could destroy these plants 

 so totally." I have ascertained, from an examination of living 

 specimens, that the chinch-bug is the Lygmus leucopterus, or 

 white-winged Lygseus, described by Mr. Say, in December, 

 1831, in a rare little pamphlet on the " Heteropterous Hemiptera 

 of North America." It appears, moreover, to belong to the 

 modern genus Rhyparochromus. In its perfect state it is not 

 apterous, but is provided with wings, and then measures about 



* While this sheet is passing through the press, I have to record the discovery 

 of one of these bugs in my own garden, on the 17th of June, 18o2. 



