4 IOWA AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



ality, though I have, I think, verified by personal observation nearly every 

 statement here recorded. 



At the present time (Winter) Chinch Bugs are in the adult stage, and 

 may be found secreted under grass, dead leaves, rubbish of various kinds, 

 both in the fields and in thickets or timber, especially along borders of 

 thickets or wood, under leaves, loose bark, etc. In the Spring these adults 

 issue and after finding suitable plants for the food of the young deposit 

 their eggs. The eggs are about one-thirty-second of an inch in length, 

 rather slender, slightly curved, of a yellow color and one end (the head end) 

 is truncated or apparently cut square across, and on this end are four small 

 granules or tubercles, too small to be seen with the naked eye. The egg 

 becomes darker as it nears the time for hatching, and at the head end the 

 eyes may be seen plainly through the egg walls. Each female is said to be 

 capable of laying about five hundred eggs, occupying about twenty days in 

 their deposition, so that if wet weather destroys those deposited at one time, 

 others are likely to escape. The process begins in April (possibly earlier in 

 favorable seasons) and extends into May. If wheat is available this will 

 be the principal crop attacked at this time, but eggs may also be laid in 

 oats, rye, barley, corn and various grasses. The bugs depositing eggs live 

 for some time afterward; if plenty, may even do some damage to the crop, 

 but usually they are too few in number to cause trouble, and they gradually 

 die off till by the time their offspring mature they are mostly dead. 



The eggs hatch into minute yellow or light red bugs, which have the 

 same general form as the adults. They begin feeding on the roots of the 

 plant where the eggs were laid. (Eggs, it is said, may be laid above ground, 

 but they are almost always found on the stems or roots of the plant, half 

 an inch or more beneath the surface.) After growing for a time the larva 

 sheds its skin, assuming a darker color, but retains a light band across the 

 middle of the back. After growing for another period it moults again, 

 assuming after this moult a brownish color with a whitish line across the 

 back. After still another moult it becomes nearly black save the white 

 band on the back, and in this stage the wing pads become well developed, 

 indicating the pupa stage, and when another moult occurs (really the trans- 

 formation from pupa to adult,) the insect assumes the winged condition. 

 It is now three-sixteenths of an inch long, of a deep black color and with 

 white wings, which have a black spot on the border near the middle. Bugs 

 which have hatched in April or May become mature in the latter part of 

 June or in July, and, after pairing, another lot of eggs is deposited to 

 produce a second brood of bugs. The bugs which have been feeding in 

 wheat, however, find upon its ripening that they must migrate or starve, so 

 that there is a general movement of bugs, both mature and partially devel- 

 oped, from wheat fields into corn, etc., accomplished as a rule on foot by the 

 winged bugs as well as the immature ones. Sometimes in July there is a 

 general flight of bugs, and at such times the air will be loaded with bugs, 

 and fields which have not been previously infested will swarm with them. 

 This is bad enough, but as each female of this swarm deposits hundreds of 

 eggs, it is riot long till the field is so packed with bugs that the plants 

 rapidly succumb. On corn they will cluster on the stalks from the roots to 

 near the tops of the leaves, while on grasses such as Hungarian, fox-tail, 

 etc., every part of the plant may be crowded with them. The second brood 

 attains its growth during the late Summer and Fall, and by the time cold 

 weather approaches nearly all have reached the mature form and re ready 

 to secrete themselves for the Winter. 



