233 



Failing to find them in the sitnations noted, I carried the examina- 

 tion further, and tiually discovered what is probably the normal hiber- 

 nating place of the chinch bug in the dense stools of certain of the 

 wild grasses, such as the blue stem and other sorts, perhaps including 

 tame varieties, which incline to the stooling habit. Toward the last of 

 September the chinch bug begins its autumnal flight, and very shortly 

 thereafter disappears entirely from the cornfields. In this flight it 

 frequently goes some distance from the fields which it has infested, 

 and, finding in these grass stools favorable situations, works its way 

 well down into the stool, almost or quite below the general surface of 

 the ground. In these situations only were chinch bugs found during 

 the winter, and so numerously, that a single stool of grass would con- 

 ceal hundreds of the insects. By tearing the grass apart the hibernat- 

 ing bugs would be found massed between the stalks, well down into 

 the earth, as thickly as they could force themselves into the crevices. 

 The matted grass between the stools, which furnished considerable pro- 

 tection, did not harbor a single chinch bug. So marked is this hiber- 

 nating habit, that it is reasonable to infer that it is the normal and 

 ancient one of the species, the natural food-plant of which, before the 

 advent of settlement and the growth of the cereals, must have been 

 some of our native grasses. 



Under date of October 8, 1883, Dr. Lintuer gives an account of the 

 chinch bug in the Albany Argus (republished in the Country Gentle- 

 man of October 18), recording some personal observations in which he 

 seems to have come very close to the true facts, without, however, recog- 

 nizing their importance, and ignoring them altogether in the general 

 account of the insect in his second report, published some time after. 

 Dr. Lintner says that in a field of timothy badly infested with the 

 insect he found them October 5, G, 1883, collecting in dense masses a 

 few inches in diameter on the ground and on the sunny side of fur- 

 rows running about like ants and elsewhere "concealed among the 

 roots near to and about the bulbs, on which they seemed mainly to 

 feed." The insects may here have been just beginning to enter the 

 timothy stools for hibernation, although the denser stools of the wild 

 grasses, where available, would probably be selected in preference. 



In s])ite of my utter failure to find them in the winter quarters ordi- 

 narily designated and the similar experience recorded by Prof. Forbes, 

 the reports of actual observations by others can.not be ignored, and ifc 

 IS probable that where grass stools areinsufiflcient or wanting the chinch 

 bug can and does hibernate more or less successfully in some of the 

 other situations cited, but I am convinced that this is never done 

 except of necessity. 



This peculiarity of hibernation has an important bearing on one of 

 the common recommendations as to remedies, namely, the burning or 

 clearing up of all loose rubbish about fiirms, particularly the matted 

 grass in fence corners and on headlands and leaves in hedgerows* 



