REMEDIAL AND PREVENTIVE MEA8UBES. 55 
from about a vineyard located on a narrow neck of land about a quarter 
of a mile from the Bay of Sandusky, on the one side and about l.\ miles 
from the shores of Lake Erie on the opposite side, were collected late 
in April and brought to our insectary and placed in a breeding cage. 
At the time of collecting the leaves only an occasional chinch bug 
was to be observed, but under the warm atmosphere of the insectary 
they began to stir themselves, and soon demonstrated that there had 
been a large number ensconced unseen among the dried and curled 
dead grape leaves. So it is with the matted grass along roadsides and 
fences, especially the Virginia worm rail-fence. 
While it is not possible to find them by searching, if pieces of boards 
are laid down on the grass in early spring chinch bugs will collect on the 
under side and may be found there, or they may be discovered by the 
method of collecting known to entomologists as sifting. By burning 
all such grass thousands of bugs will be destroyed in their winter 
quarters 5 but sometimes the matted blue grass remains green in 
winter, or the weather is not sufficiently dry to enable the farmer to 
burn over such places. In such cases a flock of sheep if given the 
freedom of the fields during winter and spring will eat off all living 
vegetation and trample the ground with their small feet, so that not 
only is all covering for the bugs removed but they are trampled to 
death besides. The ease with which the narrow strip of grass land 
along a post and wire fence can be kept free of matted grass and leaves 
as compared with that along a hedge or rail fence indicates that there 
may be an entomological factor connected with the modern fence that 
has been overlooked, giving it, in this respect, an advantage over 
the more ancient form. Shocks of fodder corn left in the fields over 
winter certainly afford protection for many chinch bugs, as also will 
coarse stable manure spread on the fields before the chinch bugs have 
selected their place of hibernation in the fall. In short the first 
protective measure to be carried out is a general cleaning up in winter 
or early spring either by burning or pasturing or both. 
SOWING DECOY PLOTS OF ATTRACTIVE GRAINS OR GRASSES IN EARLY SPRING. 
Judging from the manner in which the wintered-over adults are 
attracted to hills of young corn, wheat fields, or plats of panic grass 
and foxtail, it has always seemed to me practical to take advantage o( 
this habit and sow small patches of millet, Hungarian grass, spring 
wheat, or even corn, early in the spring and thus bait the adults as 
they come forth from their places of hibernation. Their instincts will 
prompt them to seek out the places likely to afford the most desirable 
food supply for their progeny, and if an artificial supply can be offered 
them that will be more attractive than that furnished by nature, the 
bugs will certainly not overlook the fact, but will take advantage ot it 
to collect together and deposit their eggs there, whereupon eggs. 
young, and adults can, a little later, be summarily dealt with by plow 
