THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



173 



to US that we must ourselves liave iioticeil more 

 than one such flight in the course of eleven 

 years' careful observation. Our own private 

 opinion is, that it is only when Chinch Bii^s 

 have become so unduly numerous, as to be 

 instinctively aware that they must either 

 emigrate or starve, that they take wing in I lie 

 manner occasionally observed both by Dr. 

 Shimer and by ourselves. This is strictly 

 analogous to the habits of the Army 

 worm, and the diflerent migratory Grass- 

 lioppers, whether European or American ; 

 all of which insects, and many others which 

 might be mentioned, do not emigrate regularly 

 every year, but only in those particular years 

 wheu their numbers happen to have become 

 very large and food begins to run scarce. Be 

 this as it may. Dr. Shimer's concluding remarks 

 are correct, so far as our observations extend : 

 " At no other time save their love-season, twice 

 a year, have I ever seen one Chinch Bug Hying. 

 It is quite remarkable that the winged insect, 

 under no other circumstances, will even attempt 

 to use its ample wings. No threatening danger, 

 however imminent, whether of being driven 

 over by grain-reapers' wagons, or of being 

 trodden under foot, etc., will prompt it to use 

 its wings to escape. I have tiled all imagin- 

 able ways to induce them to fly, as by thresh- 

 ing among them with bundles of rods or grass, 

 by gathering them up and letting them fall 

 from a height, etc., but they invariably refuse 

 entirely to attempt to use their wings in escap- 

 ing from danger." Mr. D. K. Emerson, how- 

 ever, of Stoughton, Dane county. Wis., is 

 reported in the Proceedings of the Neic York 

 Farmers' Club as saying that " after they com- 

 mence flying, corn is too far advanced for them 

 to damage, as it is too ripe to roast;" which 

 would bring the period of their flying well on 

 into September, instead of the orthodox " love- 

 season " of July. And Dan. F. Kogers, of 

 Waltham, LaSalle county. North Illinois, gives 

 the following graphic account of their vagaries, 

 from which it follows that, at the very period 

 of the year when, according to Dr. Shimer's 

 theory, the insect ought to be in the air and 

 using its wings, it was crawling rapidly along 

 the earth in vast crowds in the most heterodox 

 manner, and without paying any attention to 

 Dr. Shimer's so-called " love-season," was actu- 

 ally traveling a-foot in a provokingly irregular 

 way in the very midst of harvest. 



Tliere never was a belter "show" for wheat auil 

 barley than we had here the 10th of June, and no more 

 paltry crop has been hai'vested since we were a town. 

 Many fanners did not get their seed. In passing 

 bv a tield of barley where the Cliineh Bugs had 



been at work for a 



iin 111.- i.|i|H,-iir -i.ir. i)> Mi.h mimbers that I felt 

 ahihi-i aiVanl lo ml. my li..i..- among thera. The 

 i-uail ami Till. IS wi-rr ali\.' wiiii tliem. 8onie teams 

 w.'iv at woik iiiriHlinu- llic i-oa.l at tl]issi)ot, and the 

 liUL'^ .MIX, IV. I 1,1.11, l,..r-.s aii.l >.-i-apci-s till they were 

 (u,v..| I., ,|i,ii u,,rk lor 111.' .lav 'nie bii-s took ten 

 a.T-- ..filial .■..111, .'l-aii t.. 111.' -n.iiiid, b.-l'ore its liard- 

 riiiii- -talk>~ l.iiiiy t<..i mii.-li lor their tools— checked 

 till II pro^^ress Another lot of them came fromawhcat 

 tiiKl adjoining my farm into a piece of com, stopping 

 now and then for a bite, but not long. Then they 

 crossed a meadow .30 rods into a lU-acre lot of sorgo', 

 and swept it lik<' a lire, tlimisjli lli.- ran.- wastli.ii M-arce 

 in tassel. Fi-..iii \\ ln-at l.i -or-.. «a- al I. a-l Ni\lv rods. 

 Their mar.'li «aN -..m-iih'.I 1.\ ih. .l^.■..^ .lal.l.' lau. .'X- 

 cept that Ih.v w. n- iiilcriialU' luiii-rx . an. I \\ru\ \s lion- 

 there was m.l.~l to cat. lltlpunj a „.nii,:~'r li„rr.,i ,,|icof 



hers that tliey bid fair to drive out 



crib, stable,' well-curb, trees, garden fences — one 

 (vei/./«;/ mass of .stinking life. lu the hoitse as well as 

 outside, like the lice ot Egypt, they were everywhere; 

 but ill a single day they were gone.* 



It has long beeu known that the Chinch Bug 

 deposits its eggs underground and upon the 

 roots of the plants which it infests, and that the 

 young larvie remain underground for some con- 

 siderable time after they hatch out, sucking the 

 sap from the roots. If, in the spring of the 

 year, you pull up a wheat plant in a field badly 

 infested by this insect, you will find hundreds 

 of the eggs attached to the roots; and at a 

 somewhat later period the young larvie may be 

 found clustering upon the roots and looking like 

 so many moving little red atoms. According to 

 Dr. Shimer, the egg is so small as to be scarcely 

 visible to the naked eye, of au oval shape, about 

 four times as long as wide, of a pale amber 

 white color when first laid, but subsequently 

 assuming a reddish color from the young larva 

 showing through the transparent shell. t As 

 the mother Chinch Bug has to work her way 

 underground in the spring of the year, in order 

 to get at the roots upon which she proposes to 

 lay her eggs, it becomes evident at once, that 

 the looser the soil is at this time of the year the 

 greater the facilities which are ofl'ered for the 

 operation. Hence the great advantage of 

 plonghing land for spring grain in the preceding 

 autumn, or, if ploughed in the spring, rolling it 

 repeatedly with a heavy roller alter seeding. 

 And hence the remark frequently made by 

 farmers, that wheat harrowed in upon old corn- 

 ground, without any ploughing at all, is far less 



neij' Cluh, printed 



tin Dr. Shhner's Paiar th.- .liiiuiisions of the egg, as 

 "determined with tine iiiutluiuaticul instruments," are 

 said to be "0.04 inch long and u.ui inch wide," (p. 99.) 

 We never measured the egg ourselves, but we suspect that 

 this is either a clerical or a typogi-aphical eiTor for "0 004 

 inch long and 0.001 inch wide. ' ' Otherwise the egg would 

 l)e nearl>- one-third as long us the insect itself; and as Dr. 

 Shimer thinks that every female lays about 500 eggs, this 

 would be somethiug like getting a bushel of wheat out of a 



