10 Farmers’ Bulletin 1223. 
In the Middle West destructive outbreaks are most frequently 
traced to the abundance of thick, bunch-forming grasses and to the 
matted grass and leaves bordering osage-orange hedges. In the 
timothy meadows of New England, New York, and northern Ohio 
these conditions are of less importance, because there the insects pass 
the winter largely in the meadows and do not migrate to and from 
these places, except on foot. 
While all sizes of nymphs, as well as adults, go into hibernation 
places in the late fall, it appears that (except for one record from 
Montana) only the adult bugs survive the winter. 
MIGRATIONS. 
The chinch bug always seeks the nearest suitable hibernating place 
in the fall, and its choice is determined by the necessities of shelter 
and food. While some bugs may be found at any time in scattered lo- 
cations where there is no food, as a rule they prefer, especially in the 
southern part of the range, to get down in the midst of plants such as 
bunch grass, Johnson grass, or in green fodder stubbles or shocks 
where some of the plants remain green. They then have food on the 
warm days occurring after hibernation begins and before they leave 
their winter quarters in the spring. In the spring the insect moves 
only as far as is necessary to assure an abundant food supply. In 
situations such as the timothy fields of northeastern Ohio, it spends 
the winter in the fields, merely continuing its ravages in the spring. 
In the fodder fields of southern Oklahoma and Texas it does like- 
wise, when the fields are left in stubble or shocks are left on the 
ground. In Kansas it often migrates by flight for considerable dis- 
tances to secure good hibernating quarters in the prairie bunch grass 
in fall, and from such quarters to the fields of growing wheat in the 
spring. 
In the northern part of its range, the spring movement usually be- 
gins in April and continues until the latter part of May. In the 
southern portion, i. e., Oklahoma and Texas, it begins in the latter 
part of March or early part of April and continues until the latter 
half of May, or, in some seasons, until the first part of June. The 
migration is spread over several weeks, the earliest individuals hav- 
ing deposited eggs before the latest ones have left winter quarters. 
In their spring search for food they usually attack fields of grasses, 
wheat, oats, or barley. The adults find feeding places well down in 
the plant stool, and, as the days grow warmer, along in April or May, 
earlier in the South, later in the North, begin to deposit their eggs in 
these situations. 
A single chinch bug deposits from 100 to 500 eggs in the course of 
her life, the average probably being between 100 and 200. The eggs 
