THE CHINCH BUG. 29 
State entomologist of Illinois, and which is sufficiently interesting to 
quote: 
In his vicinity, in Jersey County (Ills.), they (the chinch bugs) were extremely 
abundant in the grain early in the spring, but were all apparently swept out of the 
country by a long and violent storm. Some days afterwards, when the water had 
subsided, he noticed in pulling over the drift-wood in the river bottoms immense 
numbers of chinch bugs among the rubbish, most of them still alive and crawling 
about. 
Professor Forbes also concludes that simple exposure to moisture 
hardly bas the effect attributed to rain from experiments which he made 
as follows : 
A number of hills infested by the bugs were successfully transplanted to boxes and 
variously treated with water for ten days. Some selected examples were thoroughly 
drenched every day, both ground and stalks; in other boxes only the ground was 
watered ; in still others the corn was sprinkled every day, but the ground protected 5, 
and the remainder were left with only sufficient attention to keep the corn alive. 
During the time for which these experiments were continued, no appreciable effect 
whatever was produced upon the bugs infesting the stalks. Those where the corn 
was watered were washed down upon the ground each time, but soon dried off and 
climbed up the stalk. At the end of this time the bugs under observation all com- 
menced to disappear indiscriminately, without reference to the mode in which the 
corn had been treated, and the experiment was thus abruptly closed. Enough was 
learned, however, to show that a succession of heavy daily showers for more than a 
week would have no appreciable effect upon these insects in that stage. The weather 
was warm and pleasant, and the conditions under which the experiments were carried 
on made it impossible to saturate the air. 
So general a conclusion it seems to us is hardly warrantable from the 
conditions under which the experiments were made. If ‘tthe weather 
was warm and pleasant, and the condition under which the experiments 
were carried on made it impossible to saturate the air,” the effect could 
hardly help but differ from that of a heavy shower in a corn-field, par- 
ticularly from that of ‘a succession of heavy daily showers for more 
than a week,” when there would be considerable cloudy weather and 
the atmosphere on the whole would be moist. 
Professor Riley mentioned the fact that the larve and pupx are more 
readily killed by the wet weather than the adult insects, but that the 
latter are also killed. 
Mr. Walsh (Am. Ent. I, 175, 1869) gives the emphasis of italics to the 
following sentence : 
In a hot, dry season chinch bugs are always the worst ; in a wet season it is im- 
possible for them to do any considerable amount of damage. 
Dr. Shimer (loc. cit.), in his account of the epidemic, argued that it was 
doubtless the indirect effect of the wet weather. Dr. Thomas (Bull. 5, 
U.S. E. C.) expressed the opinion that the wet weather gave rise to a 
minute fungus which is the direct cause of the death of the insect. 
Professor Forbes says: 
The phenomena connected with the action of parasites, which I have above de- 
scribed, were apparently independent of any appreciable general cause, as they were 
most manifest at a time when the weather had been warm, dry, and altogether un- 
