420 
trees, but it has never been reported before to infest furniture. The 
board in question was ot tulip-tree wood, and plainly indicated that the 
beetles and their larva: 1 had been at work in it for several, if not many, 
generations. But it also showed another point, viz, that the working 
of the insect was exclusively done in the sap wood, and the portion 
consisting of heart wood had not been touched in the least. This is by 
no means a new observation (see Ed. Perris's Larves de Coleopteres, 
p. 246), but to our knowledge no one in this country has ever drawn 
attention to the rule that, for furniture of all kinds, only the heart wood 
should be used, never the sap wood, as a protection against the attacks 
of ptinid beetles, including our powder-post beetles (genus Lyctus). — 
E. A. S. 
THE HOME OF THE CHINCH BUG. 
m a recent article in Insect Life (vol. vn, pp. 232-234), Mr. Marlatt 
states that the normal hibernating place of this insect is in the dense 
stools, or root-stocks, of certain wild grasses, and concludes that this 
hibernating habit "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." In 
this Mr. Marlatt is unquestionably correct, and I merely wish to point 
out that this habit of the chinch bug can still be studied to-day in the 
original and ancient habitat of the insect. 
The unique appearance of the full-grown chinch bug, with its white 
wings and chalky white pubescence,* forcibly indicates that the insect 
is either a psammophilous or maritime species; and that it originally 
belonged to the latter class of insects is, in my opinion, fully borne out 
by its geographical distribution. It is abundant on the sandy dunes 
along the Atlantic Ocean, where I have traced it from Cape Florida to 
Atlantic City, IS". J., and I have not the slightest doubt that it occurs 
along the coast much farther north. In Mr. Ashmead's and my own 
experience it is never found inland in Florida, though it abounds on the 
coast. 
It is well known that even now the chmch bug does not occur west 
of the Rocky Mountains until we come to the Pacific Coast, and the 
meager records from California show that it is a strictly maritime 
species there, never having been found inland. Mr. Koebele had no 
trouble in finding it in large numbers on the shore near Alameda (see 
Insect Life, vol. I, p. 26), and if proper search be made it will no 
doubt be found on any point of the California coast. Farther south, 
Professor Uhler records it (Proc. Cal. Acad. Sci. (2), vol. iv, p. 210) 
from Lower Purissima, which is on the east coast of Lower California. 
Of the localities in Guatemala recorded by Mr. Distant in Biologia 
*The color of the specimens figured in the Keport of the Commissioner of Agricul- 
ture for 1887 (PI. I, figs. 1 to 7), is altogether too dark, they having been drawn from 
alcoholic specimens. Fresh, living specimens, except such as have been exposed to 
I>rolonged rainy leather, more or less closely resemble in coloration the specimens 
represented at figure 8. 
