34 PAPERS ON CEREAL AND FORAGE INSECTS. 



stalks, under the weeds in the field, and beneath the rubbish collected about the 

 hedgerows. Not a single specimen was found in these situations, although every 

 temptation was afforded to hibernating insects, and many other species occurred 

 abundantly. To what resorts the swarms which had developed in these situations 

 had betaken themselves to pass the winter, I am not able to say. 



Prof. Herbert Osborn, a in giving a summary of his observations 

 on the chinch bug in Iowa in 1894, states: 



In a great majority of cases, 90 per cent or more, the infested fields were directly 

 adjacent to hedges or thickets or belts of timber, and in 75 per cent osage-orange hedges 

 were the most available shelter. In about 13 per cent of cases the evidence showed 

 hibernation in grass and weeds and in some of these cases there could scarcely be a 

 doubt that the hibernating bugs were protected by a heavy growth of grass or weeds 

 and that they moved from these directly into adjacent fields. 



Prof. F. M. Webster, of this bureau, has probably given the chinch 

 bug more attention than any other entomologist and has contributed 

 more to our knowledge of the pest. His observations in Ohio and 

 those made by Prof. Herbert Osborn in Iowa are at variance with 

 those made in Kansas by Mr. Marlatt and by the writers. Prof. 

 Webster offers the following explanation a of their hibernating habits 

 in different localities: 



In Kansas, where Mr. Marlatt made his observations, there was still too much 

 prairie, and the species was doubtless still adhering to its ancient habits of hibernation. 

 In southern Ohio the author has found it attacking the wheat in May, in small isolated 

 spots over the fields, while there was nothing in the least to imply an invasion from 

 outside, but the wheat had been sown in the fall among corn, and later the cornstalks 

 cut off and shocked, remaining in this condition until the following spring. This 

 occurred so frequently that there seemed no room to doubt that the attacks had been 

 caused by adults wintering over in the corn fodder and that these left their winter 

 quarters in spring to feed and breed on the grain growing nearest at hand. 



The hibernating habits of the chinch bugs have been closely 

 observed during .two seasons in Kansas and Oklahoma, and the obser- 

 vations made indicate that the bugs hibernate there chiefly in dense 

 clumps of sedge grass, principally those of different species of Andro- 

 pogon. 



The following data with reference to the hibernating habits of the 

 chinch bugs were made by the writers in southern Kansas, and are 

 given here to substantiate the above statement : 



From Mr. Hayhurst's notes made in the fall of 1907: On October 

 26, at Winfield, Kans., he found active adult chinch bugs in stools of 

 broom beard grass (Andropogon scoparius) in great numbers, always 

 close to the ground. On November 1, 1907, at Newkirk, Okla., he 

 again found many active bugs in the stools of forked beard grass 

 (Andropogon furcatus) close to the ground. They were present in 

 nearly every stool of this grass examined along roadsides and also on 

 the open prairie where the grass had been cut. 



a Bui. 69, Bur. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agr., pp. 16-17, 1907. 



