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REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 61 
offershelter. Theyseemtopreferdrysituations. Bunchesof olddead 
grass and weeds offer them particularly attractive places for hiberna- 
tion. Professor Atkinson writes us that the Crab Grass in North 
Carolina not only affords the bugs sustenance after the corn-stalks 
harden, but also gives them shelter for the winter, as they work their 
way down between the leaf-sheath and the stalk. Mr. J. O. Alwood 
writes us from Columbus, Ohio, that October 26, 1887, he observed 
them lying torpid within the leaf-sheaths of an uncut field of Pearl 
Millet. During cold weather they remain torpid. On a warm, sun- 
shiny day they will stretch their legs and begin to move about toa 
slight extent; but as the cold becomes severe they press back deeper 
‘into their hiding-places. They can withstand the severest cold, and, 
in fact, as withso many other hibernating insects, the more sustained 
the cold weather the more the insects winter successfully. An in- 
stance is related by a reliable correspondent of Dr. Thomas in 
which the bugs frozen into ice were thawed, and when warm mani- 
fested signs of life, crawling back as in the spring. Dr. Shimer’s ob- 
servations upon this point are sufficiently interesting to quote: 
After the early autumn frosts they left their feeding-grounds on foot in search 
of winter quarters; none could be seen on the wing as at harvest time. Fora win- 
ter retreat they resorted to any convenient shelter they might chance to find, as 
long grass, weeds, boards, pieces of wood, rails, fallen tree leaves, etc. 
In January, 1865, I next examined their condition; those that I found in the 
sheaths of the corn-leaves above the snow, and had been thus exposed during the 
previous severe weather, when for several successive days the thermometer was 
15° to 20° below zero, were invariably found dead, without exception, and those 
beneath the snow were alive. This observation was made in the common farm 
corn-fields, as they might be found anywhere all over the wide country, for 
in autumn the Chinch-bugs remained in great numbers in the corn-husks and under 
the sheaths of the blades, as well as in other winter retreats. Upon various occa- 
sions, as the winter advanced, I brought in corn-husks filled with ice, inclosing the 
Chinch-bugs in the crystallized element; when the ice was thawed they were able 
to run, apparently unaffected by that degree of cold. It is therefore proved that 
these insects possess vitality sufficient to withstand the effect of a temperature be- 
low the freezing point, and perhaps below zero, as must have been their condition 
in these ice-bound husks; but when in the open air, exposed to the sweeping prai- 
rie winds, 15° to 20° below zero for a long time, they succumb to the coid. 
March 7, 1865.—The snow having cleared off from the ground I examined the 
condition of a host of these Chinch-bugs that had chosen for their winter covering 
cord-wood sticks lying on the ground, entirely surrounded by frost and ice. Of 
these 20 per cent. were living; those that were more fortunate in their selection of 
winter quarters fared much better. From a single handful of leaves picked up at 
one grasp from beneath an apple tree I obtained 355 living and 312 dead Chinch- 
bugs; and of their lady-bird enemies that had entered the same winter quarters 
with them, 50 were living and 10 dead. Of these Chinch-bugs I placed a num- 
ber in comfortable quariers in the house in a small pasteboard box—not in a 
st’-ve room—together with some coleopterous insects casually gathered among the 
Chinch-bugs; after one month I found the latter all dead and the former living. 
The entire month of March was rain, snow, thawing, freezing, alternately, seem- 
ing to be very uncomfortable for any living creature to remain out of doors with 
so poor a shelter and on top of the ground. 
April 1-6.—I again made repeated examinations of these Chinch-bugs in their 
winter quarters, and found about the same proportion of them living as noted on 
the i of March. At this time they wandered away on foot from their winter 
quarters. 
Mr.’G. A. Waters, in the Farmer’s Review for October 19, 1887, 
pe the following interesting observation bearing on the same 
point: 
“Tn 1881-’82 I observed a bunch of fodder that had fallen into a 
ditch that the heavy rains had washed near bya shock. The fodder 
had been overflowed with water, which had stood over the fodder 
long enough for a sheet of ice to form over it, the water subsiding 
