Bugs, Cicadas, Aphids, and Scale-insects 213 



meteorological conditions. The "chinch-bug cholera" is well established 

 all through the Mississippi Valley, but it can be artificially spread by dis- 

 tributing dead and infected bugs in fields where it has not begun to develop. 

 This method is followed in several of the corn- and wheat-growing states 

 whose entomolgists keep on hand a supply of this fungus it can be artifi- 

 cially cultivated on various nutrient media in the laboratory to send out 

 to farmers on request. The work was begun by Professor F. H. Snow of 

 the University of Kansas, and though in the beginning its beneficial results 

 were overrated, there is no doubt that much good has come from this wide- 

 spread attempt to disseminate artificially the "chinch-bug disease." 



The family Coreidae, to which the squash-bug, the box-elder bug, and 

 certain other more or less familiar insects belong, is another of the larger true 

 bug families, being represented in this country by about two hundred species. 

 In this family the membrane (apical half) of the fore wings is furnished 

 with many veins, most of which arise from a cross-vein near the base (Fig. 

 268), and the antennae arise from the upper side of the head. The squash- 

 bug, Anasa tristis (Fig. 294), ill-favored and ill-smelling, is a pest of squashes 

 and pumpkins all over the country. 

 It is brownish black above, with some 

 yellow spots along the edges of the 

 body, and dirty yellow below. It hiber- 

 nates in the adult stage, comes out in 

 early spring, and lays its eggs on the 

 young sprouts or leaves of squash- and 

 pumpkin-vines. The young hatch in P--^- mw g 



, i i , r* In fl5*&$i / NifflSUx a rw~ 



about two weeks and at first are green, 

 but soon turn brown and grayish. 

 They suck the sap from the growing FIG. 294. FIG. 295. 



vine, and soon stunt them or even kill FlG - 294. A squash-bug, Anasa tristis. 



_,. . . ,, (Natural size.) 



them. The remedy is to protect the FlG 2?s ._ The box-elder bug, Leptocoris 



young plants by means of frames cov- trivittatus. (Twice natural size.) 

 ered with netting. After the plants get well started the bugs cannot injure 

 them so easily. The box-elder bug, Leptocoris trivittatus (Fig. 295), a con- 

 spicuous black insect with three bright-red broad lines on the prothorax 

 and the fore wings, with edges and veins of a more dingy red, has become 

 familiar with the increased planting of box-elder trees in gardens and streets. 

 In the Mississippi Valley and in the plains states these box-elders are much 

 used for shade and ornamental trees because of their hardiness, and with this 

 increased supply of trees the box-elder bugs have come to be very abundant. 

 In late autumn they gather under sidewalks or, often, in stables and houses 

 to pass the winter, and have led many housewives to think a new and 

 enlarged kind of bedbug had come to town. The bug lives on the sap of 



