232 



more iippareut because of the earlier ripeuing of the fall wheat and in 

 reality the growing of fall wheat has a greater tendency to favor their 

 increase. 



Finally, the most important factors in the chinch-bug outbreak this 

 season seems to have been the extended dry period of preceding autumn 

 and spring, shown by precipitation charts, the cultivation of fall wheat, 

 rye, and in some cases barley, and the abundant Osage-orange hedges 

 as convenient places of hibernation. 



It seems safe to conclude that for Iowa, with the present system of 

 agriculture, chinch-bug outbreaks over the State at large are not likely 

 to be of very frequent occurrence, but that in sections where wheat, rye, 

 and barley are grown extensively and for a series of years in succession 

 chinch-bug outbreaks must be expected and prepared for. 



I am satisfied that the chinch bug can be controlled, but that farmers 

 should not depend upon any one method of 'treatment, and especially 

 not upon any that is to be adopted only where serious damage is actu- 

 ally occurring, though even then prompt and vigorous measures may 

 save a large part of the crops. 



THE HIBERNATION OF THE CHINCH BUG. 



By C. L, Marl ATT. 



In nearly every account of the chinch bug which I have seen, stress 

 has been placed on the hibernation of the adult in rubbisli of any sort, 

 such as the thick matted grass of headlands and linmown places, ])iles 

 of corn fodder, hay piles, or about baystacks, dried leaves under trees, 

 particularly in hedgerows, or in any other like situation. In the course 

 of very careful and extended investigations carried on in Kansas dur- 

 ing a year of excessive chinch-bug abundance I failed entirely to find 

 any basis for the above supposition. Repeated careful search through- 

 out the late fall and winter failed to discover a single living chinch bug 

 in any such situations, even when such supposedly favorable hibernating 

 conditions occurred in and adjoining fields which were alive with chinch 

 bugs late in the fall. The only writer who seems to have thrown any 

 doubt on the commonly accepted ideas as to hibernation is Prof. Forbes, 

 who, in his First Report as State Entomologist of Illinois for the year 

 1S82 (p. 37), refers to the fact that although he made very careful search 

 for hibernating adults in September, October, and November of that 

 year, he failed, as I did, to find them in any of the situations which 

 they were supposed to frequent. He mentions examining matted grass 

 in fields, rubbish in corn fields, leaves under hedgerows, etc., without 

 discovering a single specimen in these situations, although, as he states, 

 they afforded every temptatiou to hibernating insects, and many other 

 species occurred abundantly. Where the actual hibernation takes 

 place Prof. Forbes says he was unable to determine. 



