CHINCH BUG WEST OF MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 27 



ters, and very soon their ravages were in evidence. By the middle 

 of April the plants were turning to a red color, and the stems were 

 black and dry from their attacks, very few plants escaping, some 

 plants having as many as 200 bugs massed on them. Very few eggs 

 had been deposited up to the middle of April, but from this time on 

 until May 1 eggs were abundant. 



The eggs began to hatch about the 1st of May, and in one week's 

 time the wheat fields were swarming with tiny red bugs, much of- the 

 wheat dying from their severe attack combined with the effects of 

 lack of moisture. However, the situation was soon rapidly changed, 

 for rains came, and by the 1st of June there was hardly a living 

 bug to be found, either young or adult, but there were numbers of 

 unhatched eggs left unharmed on the plants. The wheat partially 

 outgrew this damage and made a fair crop, while the young corn 

 escaped injury. 



Many eggs hatched after the rains ceased, and the bugs from these 

 eggs, together with the few that survived the drenching rains of May 

 and June, succeeded in getting to the corn, where they bred in large 

 numbers. By September, having left the Indian corn, which at this 

 time was becoming dry, the young bugs were plentiful on cane and 

 kahr. These bugs matured on the cane, kahr, and succulent grasses, 

 and large numbers went into hibernation in the fall among the grasses. 



The spring of 1909 was quite late in opening. A big snow on 

 March 8 remained on the fields until March 20, and for several days 

 afterwards the ground was alternately wet and frozen. During the 

 last two days of March there was bright, warm sunshine, and the bugs 

 began to move about. On April 3 the bunches of sedge grass, Andro- 

 pogon scojmrius, in which the insects hibernated, resembled living 

 masses of crawling bugs, and before nightfall great swarms were flying; 

 this continued during the next few days, and the wheat fields had 

 now become badly infested. The chinch bugs commenced mating 

 very soon after reaching the wheat fields, and in a few days egg 

 laying began. Eggs were very numerous about wheat plants by 

 April 22, some were hatching, and by May 1 young bugs were abund- 

 ant. The massing in large numbers on single plants, which was so 

 noticeable in the spring of 1908, was entirely lacking in 1909; seldom 

 were there more than a dozen bugs on a plant, although nearly every 

 plant was infested. 



The entire month of April, together with the first ten days of May, 

 1909, were exceedingly dry and wheat suffered from lack of moisture. 

 There was no noticeable injury to the young wheat from attacks of 

 the old hibernating bugs and not much from the combined attack of 

 both the old and young bugs, until the first week of May, when the 

 wheat failed rapidly, owing to the great number of the insects and 

 the lack of moisture. Here, again, heavy rains of four days (May 

 8465°— Bull. 95, pt. 3—11 2 



