46 THE CHINCH BUG. 
It was not until 1879 that an entomologist came to the rescue of 
Doctor Shimer’s theory of disease among chinch bugs. Dr. Cyrus 
Thomas, in Bulletin No. 5 of the United States Entomological Com- 
mission, 1879, page 24, stated that while Doctor Shimer’s plague 
among chinch bugs was somewhat extraordinary, yet it was in accord- 
anee with facts that he had himself ascertained in reference to other 
insects, and in proof he cited a similar wholesale destruction of flies in 
southwestern Virginia and eastern Tennessee in the year 1849, and 
also a similar epidemic among grasshoppers in western Minnesota, 
Dakota, and northern Iowa in 1872. This position of Doctor Thomas 
in support of Doctor Shimer may be regarded as a second step in our 
advance in a knowledge of the influence of meteorological conditions 
on the chinch bug. It paved the way for further research in this 
direction. 
FUNGOUS ENEMIES OF THE CHINCH BUG DETERMINED. 
While the subject of epidemic and contagious diseases of insects 
was discussed to a greater or less extent among scientific men, there 
was a decided lack of actual experimentation, and none at all with 
‘the fungous parasites of the chinch bug until 1882 and 1883, when 
Prof. S. A. Forbes began what ultimately proved to be a long series 
of studies of the chinch bug and its natural enemies. At this time, 
1882, Professor Forbes was more especially interested in the bacterial 
diseases of the chinch bug, and though he found, at Jacksonville, I1., 
many specimens of dead chinch bugs embedded in a dense mat of 
white fungous threads, which sometimes almost hid the body and 
reminded him of the fatal disease previously reported by Doctor 
Shimer, yet except to secure from Prof. T. J. Burrill a determination 
of this fungus as belonging to the Entomophthora no progress was: 
made in the study of this particular phase of the chinch-bug problem.? 
In July, 1887, Professor Forbes found attacking the chinch bug in 
Clinton County, IL, a second fungus, which he determined as be- 
longing to the genus Botrytis, but this conclusion has since been 
revised and the species is now known as Sporotrichum globuliferum 
Speg. This discovery of a second species of entomogenous fungi and 
its separation from the Entomophthora comprises what may be justly 
termed a third step in the advancement of our knowledge of this prob- 
lem. Professor Forbes, however, seems to have still been too deeply 
interested in his bacterial studies to pay any special attention to the 
other phases of his problem, further than to record the occurrence of 
his new Botrytis in various localities in Illinois, and in one instance 
on a beetle, Parandra brunnea (observed by Mr. John Marten, at 
Champaign), and, similarly, to note the occurrence of the still spe- 
cifically undetermined Entomophthora.? 
a Twelfth Report of the State Entomologist of Illinois, pp. 47-51, 1882. 
> Sixteenth Report of the State Entomologist of Illinois, pp. 46-49, 1888. 
