142 



BRANCH ARTHROPODA 



The giant water-bugs (Belostom'idoe) are an example of the largest 

 Heteroptera or true bugs. They are often seen about electric lights. They 

 fly from pond to pond and are very rapacious, feeding upon the juices of 

 young fishes, insects, and tadpoles. 



The chinch-bug family (Lygae'idce) has nearly two hundred species in the 

 United States. The most destructive is the small but widely distributed 

 chinch-bug (Blis'sus leucop'terus) (Fig. 112), and though it measures less 

 than inch in length, it costs the United States $20,000,000 annually, for 

 it is " the worst pest of corn and one of the worst of wheat." There are two 

 generations of the chinch-bug annually. The adults winter under rubbish, 

 and in early spring they lay their eggs in fields of grain upon roots or stems 

 beneath the soil. They hatch in about two weeks, and the little red nymphs 

 attack the root and then the stalk of the wheat. They mature in about 

 six or seven weeks, when they are " blackish, with the wings semitransparent 

 white, and with a conspicuous small triangular black dot near the middle 

 of their outer margin." At about harvest time they migrate by the 



Fig. 112. The chinch-bug (Blix'sus leucop'terus): a, b, Eggs; c, newly 

 hatched larva; d, its tarsus; e, larva after first molt; /, same after second 

 molt; g, pupa the natural sizes indicated at sides; h, enlarged leg of per- 

 fect bug; j, tarsus of same still more enlarged; i, proboscis or beak, en- 

 larged. (Riley.) 



millions to fields of growing corn, marching in a body like an approaching 

 army. When the bugs of the first brood have reached maturity, they pair, 

 at which time only they use the wings, and the second generation is begun. 

 The adults of the second generation that survive the winter lay the eggs 

 for the spring brood. It is thought that a third brood sometimes appears 

 in Kansas. 



Their migration from wheat to corn fields may be hindered by plowing 

 furrows around the fields and pouring crude petroleum or coal-tar into these 

 moats. If this has not been done, when the bugs collect on the first few 

 rows of corn they should be sprayed at once with kerosene emulsion. 

 Predaceous insects, as the aphis-lion and ladybird beetles, and birds hold 

 them in check. But a parasitic fungus (Sporotri' chum globulif'erum) 

 will kill the bugs rapidly in moist, warm weath'T. 



The cicadas (Cicad'idcp) are easy of recognition on account of their 

 jarge, blunt-headed, robust, bodies, the three ocelli, and their shrill " sing- 

 ing " during the daytime in the late summer and early fall. The male 

 does all the talking or singing, if you choose to call it a song, and " his wife 



