233 
Failing to find them in the situations noted. I carried the examina- 
tion farther, and finally discovered what is probably the normal hiber- 
nating place of the chinch bug in the dense stools of certain of the 
wild grasses, such as the blue stem and other sorts, perhaps including 
tame varieties, which incline to the stooling habit. Toward the last of 
September the chinch bug begins its autumnal flight, and very shortly 
thereafter disappears entirely from the cornfields. In this flight it 
frequently goes some distance from the fields which it has infested, 
and, finding in these grass stools favorable situations, works its way 
well down into the stool, almost or quite below the general surface of 
the ground. In these situations only were chinch bugs found during 
the winter, and so numerously, that a single stool of grass would con- 
ceal hundreds of the insects. By tearing the grass apart the hibernat- 
ing bugs would be found massed between the stalks, well down into 
the earth, as thickly as they could force themselves into the crevices. 
The matted grass between the stools, which furnished considerable pro- 
tection, did not harbor a single chinch bug. So marked is this hiber- 
nating habit, that it is reasonable to infer that it is the normal and 
ancient one of the species, the natural food-plant of which, before the 
advent of settlement and the growth of the cereals, must have been 
some of our native grasses. 
Under date of October 8, 1883, Dr. Lintner gives an account of the 
chinch bug in the Albany Argus (republished in the Country Gentle- 
man of October 18), recording some personal observations in which he 
seems to have come very close to the true facts, without, however, recog- 
nizing their importance, and ignoring them altogether in the general 
account of the insect in his second report, published some time after. 
Dr. Lintner says that in a field of timothy badly infested with the 
insect he found them October 5. G. 1883. collecting in dense masses a 
few inches in diameter on the ground and on the sunny side of fur- 
rows running about like ants and elsewhere " concealed among the 
roots near to and about the bulbs, on which they seemed mainly to 
feed." The insects may here have been just beginning to enter the 
timothy stools for hibernation, although the denser stools of the wild 
grasses, where available, would probably be selected in preference. 
In spite of my utter failure to find them in the winter quarters ordi- 
narily designated and the similar experience recorded by Prof. Forbes, 
the reports of actual observations by others can.not be ignored, and it 
is probable that where grass stools are insufficient or wanting the chinch 
bug can and does hibernate more or less successfully in some of the 
other situations cited, but I am convinced that this is never done 
except of necessity. 
This peculiarity of hibernation has an important bearing on one of 
the common recommendations as to remedies, namely, the burning or 
clearing up of all loose rubbish about farms, particularly the matted 
grass in fence corners and on headlands and leaves in hedgerows- 
