PACKARD.] THE CHINCH-BUG. 697 



The larva or maggot whea (irst hatched is pale reddish, afterward becomiug -white. 

 It 13 when mature 0.15 inch iu length, oval cylindrical, jjointed at one end, and is soft, 

 shining white. 



Fly : Black with pale-browu legs and black feet and a tawny abdomen ; the egg- 

 tube of the female rose-colored, wings blackish, tawny at base ; fringed with short 

 hairs and rouuded at tip. The body is about a tenth of an inch in length, and the 

 ■wings expand one-quarter of an inch or more. The antennae of the male have the 

 joints roundish oval and verticillate. 



Remedies. — Besides the parasites of this iusect, its natural enemies, 

 large mimbers probably fall a prey to roving carnivorous insects and 

 birds, particularly swallows and luartius. As, however, the iusect re- 

 mains iu the "flaxseed" state iu the straw and stubble, the obvious 

 remedy is to burn over wheat-fields for several years in succession. 

 The rotation of crops is also a valuable preventive measure. 



The CHINOH-Bua, Blissus leucojjterus of TJhler, Lygcmis leucoiJterus 

 of Say. 



A small bug, while young sucking the roots of wheat and corn, afterward infesting 

 in great numbers the stalk and leaves, puncturing them with their beaks. It appears 

 early in June, and there is a summer and autumn brood, the adults hyberuatiug in 

 the stubble. 



This is the most formidable enemy of wheat and corn, much more 

 damage having been done to graiucrops in the Mississippi Valley and 

 the Southern States than from any other cause, as it is more or less 

 abundant each year. It is very abundant iu Kansas, Nebraska, and 

 California, according to Uhler. Dr. Shiraer states that the female is 

 " occupied about twenty days in laying her eggs, about 500 in number. 

 The larva hatches iu fifteen days, aud there are two broods in a season, 

 the first brood maturing, in Illinois, from the middle of July to the 

 middle of August, aud the second late iu autumn." According to Har- 

 ris, the "eggs of the chinch-bug are laid in the ground, in which the 

 young have been found, iu great abundance, at the depth of an inch or 

 more. They make their appearance on wheat about the middle of June, 

 aud may be seen in their various stages of growth on all kinds of grain, 

 on corn, and on herds-grass, during the whole summer. Some of them 

 continue alive through the winter in their jilaces of concealment." This 

 species is widely diffused. I have taken it frequently iu Maine, and 

 even on the extreme summit of Mount Washington in August, but it is 

 more properly a southern aud western insect. It has not attracted 

 notice on the Pacific coast, as M. H. Edwards writes me that it has not 

 yet appeared iu California. But as Mr. Uhler records it from Califor- 

 nia, it probably occurs there only rarely. 



Dr. Shimer in his ISTotes on the Chinch-Bug says that it "attained the 

 maximum of its development in the summer of 1864, iu the extensive 

 wheat and corn fields of the valley of the Mississippi, and in that single 

 year three-fourths of the wheat and one-half of the corn crop were 

 destroyed throughout many extensive districts, comjirising almost the 

 entire Northwest, with an estimated loss of more than 8100,000,000 in 

 the currency that then prevailed," while Mr. Walsh estimates the loss 

 from the ravages of this insect iu Illinois alone, in 1850, to have been 

 81,000,000. 



In the summer of 1805, the progeny of the broods of the preceding 

 year were almost entirely swept off by an epidemic disease, so few being 

 left that on the 22d of August Dr. Shimer found it " almost impossible 

 to find even a few cabinet specimens of chinch-bugs alive " where they 

 were so abundant the year before. " During the summer of 18G6 the 

 chinch-bugs were very scarce in all the early spring, and up to near the 



