THE PLANT-BUGS. 199 



gentleman had no difficulty in obtaining a sufficient number 

 without going out of his own garden. The eggs of the 

 chinch-bug are laid in the ground, in which the young have 

 been found, in great abundance, at the depth of an inch or 

 more. They make their appearance on wheat about the 

 middle of June, and 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 places of concealment. A very 

 good account of these destructive bugs, with an enlarged 

 figure, will be found in the " Prairie Farmer," for December, 

 1845. In the same publication, for September, 1850, there 

 is an excellent description of the chinch-bug, by Dr. Ls 

 Baron, who, not being aware that it had been previously 

 named by Mr. Say, called it Rhyparochromus devastator. 



During the summer of 1838, and particularly in the early 

 part of the season, which, it will be recollected, was very dry, 

 our gardens and fields swarmed with immense numbers of 

 little bugs, that attacked almost all kinds of herbaceous 

 plants. My attention was first drawn to them in conse- 

 quence of the injury sustained by a few dahlias, marigolds, 

 asters, and balsams, with which I had stocked a little border 

 around my house. In the garden of my friends the Messrs. 

 Hovey, at Cambridge Port, I observed, about the same time, 

 that these insects were committing sad havoc, and was in- 

 formed that various means had been tried to destroy or expel 

 them without effect. On visiting my potato-patch shortly 

 afterwards, I found the insects there also in great numbers on 

 the vines ; and, from information worthy of credit, am inclined 

 to believe that these insects contributed, quite as much as 

 the dry weather of that season, to diminish the produce of the 

 potato-fields in this vicinity. They principally attacked the 

 buds, terminal shoots, and most succulent growing parts 

 of these and other herbaceous plants, puncturing them with 

 their beaks, drawing off the sap, and, fi-om the effects sub- 

 sequently visible, apparently poisoning the parts attacked. 



