REMEDIAL AND PREVENTIVE MEASURES. 61 
every variety of circumstance, and the farmer will often have to fit 
his protective measure to meet weather conditions, location of field 
and its surroundings, as well as the thousand and one other variations 
of a similar nature. 
DESTRUCTION OF CHINCH BUGS WHILE IN HIBERNATION. 
The first effort that may be made with a view to warding off an at- 
tack of chinch bugs is to destroy them in their winter quarters. This 
ean be accomplished by burning all dried grass, leaves, or other rub- 
bish during winter or early spring. Forbes (First Report, p. 37) and 
Marlatt (Insect Life, VII, p. 232) have cast some doubt upon the 
statements to the effect that the chinch bug hibernates to any great 
extent among dried grass, leaves, and rubbish, but the evidence is so 
overwhelmingly in favor of the assertions of nearly every entomologist 
who has studied the insect in its hibernation to the effect that it does 
select such places in which to pass the winter that there is hardly any 
use of raising the question at all. A good illustration of the fact that 
large numbers of chinch bugs may be in hiding in such places and 
escape detection is shown by the fact that a quantity of dried leaves 
from about a vineyard located on a narrow neck of land about a 
quarter of a mile from the Bay of Sandusky on the one side and about 
14 miles from the shore of Lake Erie on the opposite side were col- 
lected late in April and brought to our insectary and placed in a 
breeding cage. At the time of collecting the leaves only an occasional 
chinch bug was to be observed, but under the warm atmosphere of the 
insectary they began to stir themselves, and soon demonstrated that 
there had been a large number ensconced unseen among the dried and 
curled dead grape leaves. So it is with the matted grass along road- 
sides and fences, especially the Virginia worm rail-fence. 
While it is not possible to find the hibernated chinch bugs by 
searching, yet if pieces of boards are laid down on the grass in early 
spring the bugs will collect on the under side and may be found 
there, or they may be discovered by the method of collecting known 
to entomologists as sifting. The burning of all such grass will de- 
stroy thousands of bugs in their winter quarters; but sometimes the 
matted bluegrass remains green in winter, or the weather is not 
sufficiently dry to enable the farmer to burn over such places. In 
such cases a flock of sheep, if given the freedom of the fields during 
winter and spring, will eat off all living vegetation and trample the 
ground with their small feet, so that not only is all covering for the 
bugs removed, but also the bugs are trampled to death. The ease 
with which the narrow strip of grass land along a post and wire 
fence can be kept free of matted grass and leaves, as compared 
with that along a hedge or rail fence, indicates that there may be 
