55 



we bave found healthy adults in bulbs after the latter had been thrown 

 out by the plow and lain in the sun for over a month. We have also 

 found them developing in bulbs in ground plowed in May and again 

 in July, indicating that little or nothing can be accomplished by sum 

 mer fallow. 



The most practical and probably the most effective method of destroy- 

 ing the food plant of the pest is to sow rye or some other crop on the 

 laud the first season after breakiug. 



THE CHINCH BUG. 



(Bliss us leucqpterus Say.) 



The history and distribution of the Chinch Bug in Indiana offers 

 some problems not only very perplexing but exceedingly difficult to 

 solve. In fact, we shall here make no attempt toward a solution, but 

 rather to separate a few of the many complex elements which are 

 thought to influence the distribution and numbers of the x>est, and to 

 some extent at least indicate how far they may be considered or per- 

 haps eliminated entirely from any independent relation to the subject, 

 thereby affording aid to the future investigator. 



It is well known that although Thomas Say, at the time he described 

 the species, was residing at New Harmony, Indiana, nevertheless his 

 description was drawn from a single specimen taken by himself on the 

 Eastern Shore of Virginia, and so far as we know he may have died 

 ignorant of its occurrence in his own or any of the adjoining States. 



Recently, Professor Forbes has collected some data showing that the 

 species was destructively abundant in Edwards County, Illinois, as 

 early as 1828, and was also observed in Richland County in 1823. 



Strictly in accordance with the above, while that portion of Illinois 

 lying adjacent to Indiana, separated only by the Wabash River, has 

 suffered again and again through the ravages of the Chinch Bug, crops 

 on the Indiana side have not often suffered from any extensive or wide- 

 spread ravages of the pest. Not only this, but at the present time the 

 worst infested portion of Indiana is composed of those counties whose 

 western border is the Wabash River, which separates them from Illi- 

 nois, and from whence the insect occurs in continually diminishing 

 numbers northward and eastward until we reach the northern coun- 

 ties of La Porte, St. Joseph, Elkhart, La Grange and Steuben, where its 

 depredations are almost entirely unknown.* Indeed, during the years 

 when they are the most numerous elsewhere, I have found them in these 

 counties only with difficulty, and few of the farmers know what the 

 insect is like. In almost exactly the same latitude in De Kalb County, 

 Illinois, within 60 miles of Lake Michigan, they have been a serious 

 pest since 1855. 



* The only exception known to me was in Elkhart County, where they were re- 

 ported to Mr. J. R. Dodge, Statistician of the Department of Agriculture in 1867. 

 (See Bull. 17, U. S. Dept. Agri., Div. Ent., p 9.) Mr. Dodge has very kindly looked 

 up this matter, and writes me that these hugs were only reported from one locality in 

 very limited numhers and did no appreciahle damage. — F. M. W. 





