THE INSECT WORLD. 



159 



Fig. 122. 



brown in color, and with soft white wing-covers, which make it 

 quite conspicuous. It feeds on grass crops of all kinds, in- 

 cluding grain and corn, and causes enormous injury annually. 

 It can hardly be said that we have any entirely satisfactory 

 means of controlling this pest at the present time. Elaborate 

 experiments have been made in some of the Central States with 

 a fungous disease to which the insects are subject, but the out- 

 come has hardly equalled expectations. We know positively 

 that they hibernate in the adult stage, hidmg everywhere, and 

 appearing in spring to oviposit just beneath the soil upon roots, 

 or on stems at or above the surface. It is said that a single 

 female lays about five hundred eggs. The brood becomes adult 

 in midsummer, or thereabouts, and there is then a tendency 

 to migrate, particularly if the original infestation was in wheat, 

 which is by that time mature and does not suit them as food. 

 Corn or any other 

 grass crop in the 

 vicinity is then at- 

 tacked, though corn 

 is favored because 

 of its juiciness. 

 Elaborate publica- 

 tions on this insect 

 and the means for 

 its control have been 

 issued by the United 

 States Department 

 of Agriculture, and 



by the Experiment Stations in Illinois, Kansas, and other States' 

 in the grain and corn-raising districts of the country. The 

 recommendations generally narrow down to a thorough clear- 

 ing up in winter to destroy as far as may be the hibernating 

 adults. When the migrations commence from wheat to corn, 

 protection may often be obtained by trenching. The insects 

 do not readily resort to flight even when adult, but rather march 

 from field to field, and, by interposing a trench which is not 

 easily crossed, and where the insects can be destroyed by means 

 of tar or kerosene, fields may be protected. As this subject 

 is yet under consideration by so many students, it will not be 



Chinch-bug.— a, 5, egg; c, newly-hatched larva; ^-.Z, larvae 

 further advanced; g, pupa; h, leg; /, beak ; 7, tarsus. 



