CHINCH BUG — ITS EGGS. 289 



inch ot more, about the roots of the grain; from which it may be inferred that the 

 eggs are deposited in this situation, though I have not as yet succeeded in discover- 

 ing them. 



These insects present, in the course of their development, the following charac- 

 ters. The youngest individuals are vermillion red, the thorax or anterior part of 

 their bodies inclining to brown, and with a white band across the middle of the body, 

 comprising the two basal segments of the abdomen. As they increase in size they 

 become darker, changing first to brown, and then to a dull black, the white band 

 still remaining. The antennas and legs are varied with reddish. In their final or 

 perfect state they acquire white wings varied with a few black spots and lines. 



These insects belong to the Hemipterous order, and to the genus'Rhyparochromus 

 in the family of Lygaeidae. The generic name is of Greek composition, and signifies 

 sordid color, in reference to the dull colors of the majority of the species. I have 

 not at hand the means of determining whether the present species has been scientifi- 

 cally described and named. It might be appropriately called the Rhyparochromus 

 devastator. The following may serve for a more accurate description of the per- 

 fect insect than, so far as lam aware, has been heretofore published. 



Length 1 2-3 lines, or three-twentieths of an inch. Body black, clothed with a 

 very fiue greyish down, not distinctly visible to the naked eye,- basal joint of the 

 antenna? honey-yellow, second joint the same tipt with black, third and fourth joints 

 black, beak brown; wings and wing-cases white; the latter are black at their inser- 

 tion, and have near the middle two short irregular black lines, and a conspicuous 

 black marginal spot; legs dark honey-yellow, terminal joint of the feet, and the 

 claws black. 



So sudden is the invasion and so rapid the progress of these insects, that it is 

 scarcely probable that any preventive or remedy for their devastations will ever be 

 discovered. Yet it is an admirable provision of nature, that those creatures which 

 multiply at certain seasons in alarming profusion, do as suddenly and often as unac- 

 countably disappear. The common method by which the excessive increase of such 

 creatures is kept in check, is by the appropriation to each of them of some para- 

 sitic insect, which multiplies coextensively with them, and by preying upon them 

 restrains their increase within moderate limits. The migratory locust, for example, 

 and also the Hessian fly, and most kinds of caterpillars, are known to be infested 

 by parasitic insects. It is devoutly to be wished that nature may have provided 

 this, or some other remedy, against the indefinite extension of the ravages of the 

 present species, whose origin and progress seem to be so wholly removed from the 

 reach of human control. 



Little requires to be added to this account. The eggs of these 

 insects according to an editorial in the Southern Planter (vol. 

 xv, p. 269) are deposited in the ground, in autumn, where they 

 remain through the winter and until the warmth of the ground 

 the following year causes them to hatch. This takes place in 

 May at the South and probably not till June at the West. 



This insect never appears in the form of a worm or maggot, 

 like the larvse of moths, flies and beetles. Still, in its larva state 

 it is quite unlike what it is after it acquires wings, being more 

 flat and broad and having considerable resemblance to a bed- 



j Assembly 21 5. J 19 



