318 REPORT OP THE COMMISSIONER OP AGRICULTURE. 



DlEDROCEPHAIiA FLAVIOEPS, Eiley. 



Dr. liiley, liimself, states {American Entomologist, vol. 3, p. 78) that 

 tliis species was iujurious to both wheat and oats in Texas in 1856, and 

 \vc lel'er to it here only to record the fact of eggs and larvae being found 

 iu the lower i)art of oat straws on the 10th of July.* 



THE CniNCH-BUO. 



{Blissus leucopteruSf Say.) 



Tlic liabits of this insect were, the present season, somewhat in con- 

 trast with what they were as we knew them in northern Illinois, fifteen 

 to twenty years ago, when their first depredations in fields of sripng 

 wheat were marked by small spots of injured grain, these growing 

 larger as the insects became older or more numerous. 



The present season, the adults took possession early in May, and dis- 

 tributed themselves so uniformly over the field that by the 20th of July 

 there was but one affected spot, and that the whole field. The insect 

 seemed to gradually and with perfect uniformity, extract the life from 

 the entire field. 



Last season they were extremely abundant in a field of fall wheat 

 that had been badly killed out from some caus^, and therefore was not 

 only thin on the ground but backward in ripening. There had sprung 

 up a thick growth of Eottle-grass {Setaria glauca), and when the grain 

 was harvested, the 11th of July, we expected to witness a genuine mi- 

 gration. But, instead of this, the bugs simply transferred their atten- 

 tion to the Bottle-grass, and subsisted thereon until they had fully de- 

 veloped. 



When molting for the last time, in August, the pupai crawled down 

 into the stubble, where the straw had been cut off between joints, and 

 left their cast-off skins in the cavities. I have counted upwards of 

 twenty of these in a single cut stalk. 



In one such stalk, among the dried moltings and two or three dead 

 bugs, I found a species of Mcrmis, which fact would lead to the sus- 

 picion that these parasitic worms infest the Chinch-bug as well as other 

 iubccts. 



THE WHEAT MIDGE. 



{Biplosis tritici, Kirby.) 



In my previous report upon this insect were recorded all observa- 

 (ions up' to the 15tli of September, 1884. Adults wore bred from voluu- 

 tt er wliont on the 23d, and again on the 30th ; and on the 1st of October, 

 IVoiii a Held of wheat near Oxford, Ind., sown among corn during the 

 l;isr, woek of the preceding Augftst, I swept a number of adults, and 

 oil tbcod, under the sheaths of some of the wheatplants, J found younji 



" TIh'so I'ggs, judging from alcoholic specimens sent by Mr. Webster in July, IbHl. 

 :iro liiid iu a regular row. A separate slit is made for the reception of each cgK, no 

 nialter how closely they approa'ch each other. In some cases only a mere film of tlie 

 Htraw separates them. The egg itself is 1.2™'" loug, aud about six times as long as its 

 ctiutral width. Its protruding portion, about oue-sixth of its length, is closed with a. 

 cap, the diameter of -which is as great as the fridest portion of the egg. The egg la 

 considerably bent, and thickest at the eud inside the straw. The inclosed part of the 

 egg is reddish, while the exposed portion has the color of the straw. — C. V. K. 



