REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. Bei 
‘Tt was during this year also that the ‘“‘Chinch Bug convention” 
was held at Windsor, Kans., and it was decided to exclude wheat 
from cultivation as a means of extirpating the pest. 
in 1882 the work of the bug upon timothy grass was discovered in 
Saint Lawrence County, N. Y., for the first time inits history. It 
increased and spread in 1883, exciting great alarm, and occasioned 
several articles irom the pen of Dr. Lintner, who also issued a circu- 
lar on remedies and anticipating further damage. 
Professor Riley, in Science (Vol. IT, p. 620), and in his report for 
1884 stated that there was little cause for alarm in New York, and, in- 
deed, no particular damage has since been recorded. In 1885 some 
damage was done in parts of Kansas and Nebraska, and in 1886 still 
more. Bulletin No. 13 of the Division of Entomology contains reports 
of considerable damage in the spring of 1886 from Kansas, Indiana, 
Ohio, and Nebraska, and more especially in southern Ilinois. 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 
East of the Rocky Mountains the Chinch Bug seems to be indig- 
enous North and South, feeding naturally upon various species of 
_ wild grasses and becoming multiplied wherever the cultivation of 
wheat has reached its original haunts. 
It was first noticed, as stated in the last section, in North Carolina, 
and Say’s original description was published from a Virginia speci- 
men. 
Fitch records the fact that he had collected specimens in New 
York, but that it was exceedingly rare. Signoret also records it 
from New York, and, as we have just shown, it appeared in 1883 in 
destructive numbers in the northern part of this State. Harris, in 
the first edition of his well-known work, states that it did not occur 
in New England; but in a foot-note to his second edition states that 
while the sheet was passing through the press he discovered a single 
specimen in his own garden at Cambridge (June 17, 1852), and in 
1883, according to Dr. George Dimmock (Psyche. Nov., Dec., 1883, p. 
119), the lowland between Belmont and Cambridge was swarming 
with them. They have also been collected by Dr. Packard ait 
Salem, Mass., in Maine, and at the summit of Mount Washington 
in New Hampshire. Dr. Lintner records the fact that Mr. H. L. Fer- 
nald captured one or more specimens in 1879, 1880, and 1882 at 
Orono, Me. 
In Canada they occurred at Grimsby, Ontario, in 1866, and were 
sent from that point in that year to Mr. Walsh. Mr. W. F. Har- 
rington collected specimens found abundantly at Sidney, Cape Bre- 
ton (N. lat. 46° 18’), in September, 1884 (Can. Hint., Nov., 1886, p. 218). 
Dr. Fitch received specimens from western Pennsylvania, and also 
stated that it was sent him from Mississippi with the information 
that in some years it damaged the crops of Indian corn. We have 
found it personally in considerable numbers in the rice-fields near 
Savannah, Ga., and Mr. EH. A. Schwarz and others have collected it 
in Florida. In the latter State Mr. Schwarz found it very abund- 
_ antly at Biscayne Bay, breeding in the wingless form only, in consider- 
able numbers upon sand oats (Uniola paniculata). It has also been 
| collected in this same form upon the same plant on the sea-shore at 
Fortress Monroe, Va., by Messrs. Schwarz and Heidemann. Mr. 
_- Webster has noticed it in Mississippi and Louisiana and Professor 
Riley has seen it in most of the Southern States. The States, how- 
ever, in which it does the greatest damage are Virginia, North Caro- 
