232 
more apparent because of the earlier ripening of the fall wheat and in 
reality the growing of fall wheat has a greater tendency to favor their 
increase. 
Finally, the most important factors in the chinch-bug outbreak this 
season seems to have been the extended dry period of preceding autumn 
and spring, shown by precipitation charts, the cultivation of fall wheat, 
rye, and in some cases barley, and the abundant Osage-orange hedges 
as convenient places of hibernation. 
It seems safe to conclude that for Iowa, with the present system of 
agriculture, chinch-bug outbreaks over the State at large are not likely 
to be of very frequent occurrence, bu t that in sections where wheat, rye, 
and barley are grown extensively and for a series of years in succession 
chinch-bug outbreaks must be expected and prepared for. 
I am satisfied that the chinch bug can be controlled, but that farmers 
should not depend upon any one method of treatment, and especially 
not upon any that is to be adopted only where serious damage is actu- 
ally occurring, though even then prompt and vigorous measures may 
save a large part of the crops. 
THE HIBERNATION OF THE CHINCH BUG. 
By C. L. Marl att. 
In nearly every account of the chinch bug which I have seen, stress 
has been placed on the hibernation of the adult in rubbish of any sort, 
such as the thick matted grass of headlands and unmown places, piles 
of corn fodder, hay piles, or about haystacks, dried leaves under trees, 
particularly in hedgerows, or in any other like situation. In the course 
of very careful and extended investigations carried on in Kansas dur- 
ing a year of excessive chinch-bug abundance I failed entirely to find 
any basis for the above supposition. Eepeated careful search through- 
out the late fall and winter failed to discover a single living chinch bug- 
in any such situations, even when such supposedly favorable hibernating 
conditions occurred in and adjoining fields which were alive with chinch 
bugs late in the fall. The only writer Avho seems to have thrown any 
doubt on the commonly accepted ideas as to hibernation is Prof. Forbes, 
who, in his First Eeport as State Entomologist of Illinois for the year 
1882 (p. 37), refers to the fact that although he made very careful search 
for hibernating adults in September, October, and November of that 
year, he failed, as I did, to find them in any of the situations which 
they were supposed to frequent. He mentions examining matted grass 
in fields, rubbish in corn fields, leaves under hedgerows, etc., without 
discovering a single specimen in these situations, although, as he states, 
they afforded every temptation to hibernating insects, and many other 
species occurred abundantly. Where the actual hibernation takes 
place Prof. Forbes says he was unable to determine. 
