150 CHINCH- BUG. 



corn stalks with a view to finding Chinch-bugs, but have not succeeded 

 in finding a live one. I have a piece of ground sown to fall wheat, 

 from which I had carried what few stalks of corn the bugs had left 

 standing, and had thrown them in heaps along the edges of the field. 

 These heaps I have been examining, and have always found large 

 numbers of dead bugs, but no live ones. To-day it occurred to me 

 that perhaps by bringing them into a room of proper temperature, they 

 might shows signs of life ; but after giving them a fair test, I have been 

 unable to bring any to life. In all shocked corn that was put in shock 

 before the frost killed the corn, I find large numbers of dead bugs, 

 from the ear down. In later cut corn they do not seem to be so numerous. 

 In the stalk fields I find very few bugs, either dead or alive. To-day I 

 chopped up stalks by the roots, examining each sheath, from the ground 

 up; then opened the stalks, both sound and and fractured ones, but 

 found nothing that could be recognized as ever having been a Chinch- 

 bug. That the bugs disappeared from their usual haunts upon the ap- 

 proach of severe cold weather, I am fully satisfied, but where they now 

 are I have failed to ascertain. The first thought is that they have gone 

 below the surface of the ground ; but when we consider that our cold 

 weather came so suddenly upon us that the first night the ground was 

 frozen to the depth of three or four inches, it hardly seems possible 

 that the Chinch-bugs could have penetrated it." 



Mr. Patten made the following curious observation bearing upon the 

 hibernation of these insects : 



"About the time of our first frosts, while gathering hazel-nuts in the 

 timber, 1 observed that in nearly every instance where a nut had been 

 bored into by an insect or grub, from one to four Chinch-bugs had 

 found their way into the nut. Whether they were there for winter 

 quarters, or were feeding upon the partly consumed nut, was a question 

 which I could not solve." 



Mr. Patten concludes his letter with the following practical remark : 

 " As to burning the stalks with a view to destroying the Chinch-bugs, 

 I have but little faith in it. Could the stalks be burned before exces- 

 sive cold weather sets in, very probably a large portion of the bugs 

 could be destroyed, but by the time the corn can be harvested, and the 

 stalks are dry enough to burn, the Chinch-bugs have taken to their 

 legs or wings, and left for parts unknown." 



"What strikes us as remarkable in these statements of Mr. Patten is 

 that all the Chinch-bugs which he discovered appear to have been dead* 

 The question arises, did they die a natural or an unnatural death ? Had 



