r6 1 ml i a n Museum Notes. [ Vol. Jlf, 



known, at that time upon the subject, and calling attention to the investigations of 

 Professors Fortes, Burrill, and Lugger. In June 1S39 a letter was revived from 

 Dr. J. T. Curtiss, of Dwight, Morris county, Kansas, announcing that one of the 

 diseases mentioned in the article (Entoroophtora) was raging in various fields in that 

 region, and stating that in many places in fields of oats and wheat the ground was 

 fairly white with the dead hugs. Some of these dead hugs were at once ohtained, and 

 experiments were hegun in the entomological laboratory of the university. It was 

 found that living, healthy hugs, when placed in the same jar with the dead bugs from 

 Morris county, were sickened and killed within ten days. A Lawrence newspaper 

 reporter, learning of this fact, published the statement that any farmers who were 

 troubled by clinch hugs might easily destroy them from their entire farms by sending 

 to me for some diseased bugs. This announcement was published all over the country, 

 and in a few days I received applications from agricultural experiment stations and 

 farmers in nine different States, praying for a few 'diseased and deceased' bugs with 

 which to inoculate the destroying pests with a fatal disease. Some fifty packages 

 were sent out during the season of 1889, and the results were in the main highly 

 favourable. 



" It was my belief that sick bugs would prove more serviceable in the dissemina- 

 tion of disease than dead bugs. I accordingly sent out a circular letter with each 

 package, instructing the receiver to place the dead bugs in a jar for forty-eight hours, 

 with from ten to twenty times as many live bugs from the field. In this way the disease 

 would be communicated to the live bugs in the jar. These sick bugs being deposited 

 in different portions of the field of experiment, would communicate the disease more 

 thoroughly while moving about among the healthy hugs by which they would be 

 surrounded. This belief was corroborated by the results. The disease was success- 

 fully introduced from my laboratory into the States of Missouri, Nebraska, Indiana, 

 Ohio, and Minnesota, and into various counties in the State of Kansas. A report 

 of my observations and experiments in 1889 has been published in the Transactions 

 of the Kansas Academy of Science, Vol. XII, pp. 34-37. also in the Report, of the 

 Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture in 

 January 1890. 



"The next point to be attained was the preservation of the disease through, the 

 winter, in order that it might be under my control and be available for use in the 

 season of 189). To accomplish this result I placed fresh, healthy bugs in the infec- 

 tion jar late in November 1SS9, and was plnased to note that they contracted tie 

 disease and died in the same way as in the earlier part of the season. I was not able 

 to obtain fresh material for the purpose of testing the vitality of the disease ""iras 

 in the spring of 1890 until the month of April, and then only a limited supply of 

 live bugs could be secured. I quote the following from my laboratory notes : — 



*' April 10th, twenty-five clinch bugs that had hibernated in the field were put in 

 the infection jars. They were supplied with young wheat plants. The bugs appeared 

 lively and healthy. 



*'' April 16th, some of the bugs were d^ad, and all appeared stupid. 



" April 20th, all of the bugs were dead. 



" One week later a new supply of fourteen bugs was put into the jar ; they were 

 supplied with growing wheat. They run substantially the same course as the first 

 twenty-five. Some had died at the end of the first week, and all were dead by the end 

 of the thirteenth day. 



" The clinch bug seemed to have been very generally exteiminated in Kansas in 

 1SSP, anl only time applications for diseased bugs were rcceiv d in 1890 up to the 



