THE CHINCH BUG. 15 
obtained that this fungus attacks and kills otherwise healthy indi- 
viduals or that fatalities are not confined to spent females or those 
of both sexes that have become physically weakened by other causes. 
REMEDIAL AND PREVENTIVE MEASURES. 
All remedial and preventive measures that have been found to 
possess the merit of reasonable efficiency and practicability are dis- 
cussed in the following pages. These may not all prove applicable 
in all localities or under every variety of circumstance, and the 
farmer will often have to adapt his protective measures to weather 
conditions, location of field and its surroundings, and to 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 
attack of chinch bugs is to destroy them in their winter quarters. 
This can be accomplished by burning all dried grass, especially such 
as grows in clumps, notably broom sedge or sage grass, leaves, or 
other rubbish during winter or early spring, especially during eafly 
winter. The burning of such will destroy 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 protective covering for the bugs removed, but 
also the bugs are crushed. So it is with the matted grass along 
roadsides and fences, especially the Virginia worm rail fence (fig. 8). 
The greater ease with which the narrow strip of grassland 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 an entomological factor connected with the modern farm 
fence that has been overlooked, giving it, in this respect, an advantage 
over the more ancient form. 
A good illustration of the fact that large numbers of chinch bugs 
may be in hiding among fallen leaves in woods and other places and 
escape detection is furnished by a collection, made late in April, of 
a quantity of dried leaves from about a vineyard located on a narrow 
neck of land about one-fourth of a mile from the Bay of Sandusky 
on the one side, and about one and one-half miles from the shore of 
Lake Erie on the opposite side. At the time of collecting the leaves 
only an occasional chinch bug was to be observed, but under a warm 
atmosphere they began to bestir themselves and soon demonstrated 
that there had been a large number ensconced unseen among the 
dried and curled dead grape leaves. 
