﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 45 



Summer and Fall, are fond of congregating on corn-stalks in the shel- 

 ter afforded by the broad blades ; and since all insects, in molting, 

 fasten themselves as securely as possible, and as none of them that 

 live by suction, like the Chinch Bug, ever devour their cast-off gar- 

 ments, as many of the mandibulate species are known to do, the cast- 

 oflf pupa-skins in such corn-stalks remain indefinitely between the 

 blades. Again, many chinch bugs naturally die in the Fall or in the 

 Winter, either from disease or from having run their course; while in 

 some years, as Dr. Shimer has conclusively shown, and as I can testify 

 from personal examination, a very general fatality attends the hiber- 

 nating bugs, so that it is difficult to find a living one. In all such 

 cases, a little careful research by aid of an ordinary lens will soon 

 enable the farmer to determine whether he is dealing with dead or 

 living chinches, or only their skeletons. The pupa-skins, though dis- 

 tended, with every leg-covering perfect, readily reveal their mocking 

 •emptiness under the lens or by the pressure of the finger, and while, 

 when numerous, they speak in unmistaken terms of the large numbers 

 of chinches that came to maturity in the Fall, they bear no evidence 

 of the present strength, nor furnish any clue to the future power of 

 the foe: the dead bugs are generally covered with mold and are dis- 

 colored and soft : the living ones are bright-colored, and will soon 

 begin to kick and crawl on being brought into a warm room. 



BOGUS CHINCH BUGS. 



" Few things are more astonishing than the acuteness of perception 

 superinduced by being constantly conversant with some one particu- 

 lar subject. I have often been surprised at the readiness with which 

 nurserymen will distinguish between different varieties of Apple, 

 even in the dead of the year, when there are no leaves, and of course 

 no fruit on their nursery trees. In the same way old practiced shep- 

 herds can recognize every individual sheep out of a large flock, 

 though, to the eyes of a common observer, all the sheep look alike. 

 Experienced grain-growers, again, can distinguish at a glance between 

 twenty different varieties of wheat, which the best botanist in the 

 country would fail to tell one from the other ; and I have been in- 

 formed that a miller of many years' standing, as soon as he has shoul- 

 dered a sack of wheat, knows at once whether it is Spring grain or 

 Fall grain; while ninety-nine entomologists out of every hundred 

 would probably be unable, on the most careful inspection, to tell the 

 difference between the two, and some might even mistake wheat 

 for rye. 



