THE AMEEICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



173 



to us that we must ourselves have noticed more 

 tlian one such flight in the course of eleven 

 years' careful observation. Our own private 

 opinion is, that it is only when Chinch Bugs 

 have become so unduly numerous, as to be 

 instinctively aware that tiiey must either 

 emigrate or starve, that they take wing in the 

 manner occasionally observed both by Dr! 

 Sliimer and by ourselves. This is strictly 

 analogous to the habits of the Ainiy 

 worm, and the ditt'ercnt migratory Grass- 

 hoppers, 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 

 when their numbers happen to have become 

 very large and food begins to run scarce. Be 

 this as it may. Dr. Sbimer'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 tlying. 

 It is quite remarkable that tlic winged insect, 

 under no other circumstances, will even attempt 

 to use its ample wings. No tl)reatening 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 tried 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 JVew 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 provukingly irregular 

 way in the very midst of harvest. 



There never was a better "show" for wheat and 

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

 paltry erop has been harvested since we were a town. 

 Many farmers did not get their seed. In passing 

 bv a field of barley where the Chinch Bugs had 1 



Men at work for a week, I found them moving 

 n\ solid coknnn across the road to a corn tield 

 on the opposite side, in such numbers that I felt 

 almost afraid to ride my horse among them. The 

 road and fences were alive with them. .Some teams 

 were at work mending the road at this spot, and the 

 bugs covered men, horses and scrapers till they were 

 forced to quit Work I'or the day. The bugs took ten 

 acivs oftliat coin, clean to the ground, bcloi-e ils hard- 

 ening stalks— being too much for their tools— checked 

 their progress. Auutlier lot of them came from a wheat 

 licld adjoining my farm into a ])iece of corn, 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 like a tire, though the cane was then scarce 

 in tassel. I'^rom wheat to sorgo was at least sixty rods. 

 Tlieir march was governed by no discoverable law, ex- 

 eciit that they wi're iufernallv hungry, and went where 

 then- was most to cat. llilp'hiq ,i «, hihhor h,in;.^f one of 

 the few fortunate tickls. early sown— and so lucKv !— we 

 found tlicni moving acmss ids premises in sueli lunn- 

 bers that they bid fair to drive out the family. House, 

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

 i/f./z/ft;/ mass of stinking life. In the house as well as 

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

 but in a single day they were gone.* 



It has long been 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 nnderground 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 larvaj may be 

 found clustering upon the roots and looking like 

 so many moving little red atoms. According to 

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

 visible to the naked eye, of an 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. f 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 

 ploughing land for spring grain in the preceding 

 autumn, or, if i)loughed in the spring, rolling it 

 repeatedly with a heavy roller after seeding. 

 And hence the remark frequently made by 

 farmers, that wlicat harrowed in upon old corn- 

 ground, without any ploughing at all, is far less 



• From the Proceedings o/ /Ac iV. Y. Farmers' Club, printed 

 in tlie N. 1\ Sent. Tribune, June 13, 18G5. 



tin Dr. .Shimer's Paper the dimensions of the egg, as 

 "ilcterminert with fine mathematical inslnimcnts." are 

 siiiil to*e "0.01 inch long ami 01 inch wide," (p. 99.) 

 ^Ve never measured the egg ourselves, but we suspect that 

 this is either a clerical era tvpogi-aphical eiTor for "0.004 

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

 lie nearly one-third as long as the insect itself; and as Dr. 

 Shimer thinks that every female lays about 500 eggs, this 

 would he something like getting a bushel of wheat out of a 

 (juart I 



