30 



"kissing bug" prefers the lip, that a friend of the writer was bitten on 

 the lip and that the effect was a burning pain, intense itching, and much 

 swelling, lasting three or four days. The writer of the letter had been 

 bit! en upon the leg and arm, and his brother had been bitten upon both 



feet and legs and on the arm, the symptoms 

 being the same in all cases. 



More need hardly be said specifically 

 concerning these biting bugs. The writer's 

 conclusions are that the bite of any one of 

 them may be, and frequently has been, 

 mistaken for a spider bite, and that nearly 

 all reported spider-bite cases have had in 

 reality this cause; that the so-called "kiss- 

 ing-bug" scare has been based upon cer- 

 tain undoubted cases of the bite of one or 

 the other of them, but that other bites, 

 including mosquitoes, with hysterical and 

 nervous symptoms produced by the news- 

 paper accounts, have aided in the general 

 alarm. The case of Miss Larson, who died 

 in August, 1898, as the result of a mos- 

 quito bite, at Mystic, Conn., is an instance 

 which goes to show that no mysterious new insect need be looked for 

 to explain occasional remarkable cases. One good result of the "kiss- 

 ing-bug" excitement may be in the end to relieve spiders from much 

 unnecessary discredit. 



Fig. 24— Co norhinus sangiiuuga : a, 

 head, showing beak ; 6, same, from the 

 side, with piercing setaB removed from 

 sheath and with tip of one of them 

 enlarged; c, same from below— much 

 enlarged (from Marlatt). 



AN INVESTIGATION TO DETERMINE WHETHER MELANOPLUS 

 SPRETUS BREEDS PERMANENTLY IN THE TURTLE MOUNTAINS 

 IN NORTH DAKOTA. 



By W. D. Hunter, Special Temporary Field Agent 



ITINERARY. 



I left Lincoln August 9 aud arrived in St. Paul the next day. Here 

 Dr. Otto Lugger, of the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 who shortly before this time had returned from a trip to Manitoba, gave 

 me most valuable advice and information concerning the country, the 

 people, and the routes, most cheerfully assisting me in every way. The 

 same day I started for Winnipeg, whence the Turtle Mountain region 

 is more easily accessible than from the North Dakota side, and arrived 

 there on the 11th. A call was made upon the chief clerk of the depart- 

 ment of agriculture for Manitoba, Mr. Hugh McKellar, who accom- 

 panied me to the field the next day. Mr. McKellar, who had already 

 been over the ground in company with Dr. Lugger and Dr. Fletcher, 

 spent three days with me, and, being of an exceedingly energetic dis- 

 position and very well known in the province, his assistance removed 

 all the obstacles that harass a newcomer seeking information, and is 

 gratefully acknowledged. We arrived at Boissevain, a village about 



