45 



hours after burial all were still alive, no difference appearing be- 

 tween the two lots. Heavy rains, about twenty-five hours long in 

 all, liad occurred during the interval. 



September 3, a similar experiment was made with both old and 

 young, two lots of chinch bugs being buried five and six inches 

 ■deep, respectively, with grass in an earthern pot, the earth being 

 firmly pressed down over them. Ten days later, both young and 

 old were still alive. 



September 5, three lots were buried in pots with grass, one 

 three inches deep, one five inches, and the third six. Five days 

 later those of the first lot had not yet crawled out of the earth, 

 but were still alive. In the second lot many had come to the 

 surface, but in the third, six inches deep, none had crawled out, 

 though all were living. The earth was packed over all these lots 

 to imitate rolling in the field. The late period at which these 

 experiments were made and the consequent possible preparation of 

 the bugs for their hibernating fast, may have had something to 

 do with the failure of this method of starvation.* 



CONTAGIOUS DISEASE. 



In my first entomological reportf an account was given of a newly 

 •detected disease of the chinch bug characterized by the presence 

 I -of bacteria in great numbers in the alimentary canal, my obser- 

 vations on which were made almost wholly at Normal, in McLean 

 county, and at Champaign. In the samc^ report I referred to 

 chinch bugs found dead in fields of corn at Jacksonville, Sep- 

 tember, 1882, imbedded in a white fungus which proved, on ex- 

 amination by Prof. Burrill, to be an Entomophthora (EmpusaV 

 Other bugs similarly situated were found at Normal, some of 

 which seemed to have died from other causes, the fungi imbed- 

 ding them having the characters of a common mold ; but a slide 

 made from one of these insects, still in my possession, contains a 

 quantity of unmistakable Entomophthora.** 



During the still existing chinch-bug outbreak, we have closely 

 watched for the appearance of these diseases, bugs having been 

 crushed occasionally for study of their fiuids, and all dead speci- 

 mens found being brought to the ofiice and examined with refer- 

 ence to the presence of parasitic fungi in their bodies. 



•An observation reported by Mr. E. M. Shelton, Director of the Kansas Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station, in their Bulletin 4, throws lipfht upon the effect of burial by plowing. Chinch bugs 

 plowed under with young wheat to a depth of eight inches May 9 and 10, — the ground being after- 

 ward harrowed and repeatedly rolled, — nevertheless emerged in enormous numbers, (some having 

 apparently hatched in the earth,) escaped from the plots, and attacked adjacent crops. 



tTwelfth Report of the State Entomologist of Illinois (1882) pp. 47-51. 



JThis chinch-bug microbe was found in bugs collected in Central Illinois in May of the follow- 

 ing year (1883), and may have had its share in a still further reduction of the numbers of chinch 

 hngs in that region, apparent each year until 1887. 



**In an article on "The Chinch Bug and the Season," published in the "Prairie Farmer" of Chi- 

 is?o, for November 25, 1882, Prof. E. A. Popenoe, of the Kansas Agricultural College, says that 



' rmers of Southeastern Kansas had recently reported to him the death of all the chinch bugs in 

 Neir corn,— the dead bugs being collected about the foot of the stalks, and each covered with a 



^rong growth of white mold. 



