IN THE FIELD 211 



in ants ? Do insects have an internal bony skeleton ? Is 

 the outside of their bodies hard or soft ? 



33. The Chinch Bug. Blyssus leucopterus. 



MATERIAL : A number of bugs in different stages of development 

 confined in a bottle with a few blades of grass. By looking carefully, 

 where the grain stands thin, they can generally be found, although 

 they may not have attracted general attention. To show the illustra- 

 tions and briefly to give the life history might be well in districts that 

 are likely to be infested in the future ; otherwise omit the lesson where 

 the bugs cannot be found. 



The chinch bug is a small insect, only a little over an 

 eighth of an inch long. Its general color is almost black, 

 but the wing covers are white, marked with two black spots 

 and a Y-shaped line. They have the disagreeable odor of 

 bedbugs. Chinch bugs have a sucking mouth, and live on 

 the sap of green grain and different cultivated and wild 

 grasses. They prefer wheat. After the small grain is cut, 

 they migrate to the cornfields. 



They winter in the adult state under straw, weeds, brush, 

 and all kinds of rubbish. In spring the reviving bugs move 

 to the nearest food plants, and deposit their eggs on or near 

 the roots. One female can produce over two hundred eggs, 

 and there are at least two broods in a season. Plants which 

 are attacked by many bugs soon wilt and die. It has been 

 estimated that in 1887 the six central grain-producing states 

 lost six hundred million dollars through chinch-bug ravages, 

 and in the same year Minnesota alone lost over six million 

 dollars. 



The original home of the chinch bug was probably on the 

 shores of the Atlantic, where it fed on wild grasses ; but 

 since the country has been put under cultivation, it has 

 spread enormously, and is now found from New Brunswick 



Observations. Earthworms, their castings and holes, leaves and grasses 

 pulled into the ground by them. 



