66 THE CHINCH BUG. 
vent their confusion with the true Blissus leucopterus, as in some cases 
people finding them and supposing them to be the true pest, are likely 
to become panic stricken and often destroy property unnecessarily, so 
notorious has the name "chinch bug" become in the United States. 
PROBABLE ORIGIN AND DIFFUSION OF THE CHINCH BUG. 
For the farmer engaged in attempts to check the ravages of the 
insect in his fields the question of origin, or how it came to reach him, 
will at the time have little interest for him. It will suffice that it is 
present in overwhelming numbers, and what he will most desire will be 
to learn how to rid his premises of its most unwelcome presence in the 
most summary manner possible. 
If, however, the farmer happens to be a thoughtful and observing man 
he will sometimes wonder how it is that, except in Virginia and the 
Carolinas, a person need not be very aged in order to remember a time 
when the chinch bug was an unknown factor in his profession, with a 
possible value far too small to merit consideration. If he happens to 
reside in northeastern Ohio or in some portions of New York, and has 
spent some time in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, or Minnesota, he will prob- 
ably marvel at the striking difference in appearance between many of 
the chinch bugs of his own locality and those found in any of the last- 
mentioned States, and will probably be able to satisfy himself of their 
identity only by the similarity of their vile odor. Again, he will prob- 
ably be equally at a loss to understand why it is that his own timothy 
meadows are overrun by these pestiferous insects and destroyed, 
while in other localities, perhaps less than 100 miles away, similar 
meadows are left untouched, the injury there being confined to the 
wheat and corn fields. 
If wondering leads to questioning, as it often does among the con- 
stantly increasing number of educated and up-to-date farmers, it will 
not satisfy him to receive an evasive or obscure reply to his query as to 
why such differences exist, for if he can not get a clear explanation he 
will want ideas, theories, or possibilities. He wants the best explana- 
tion possible to give until some one finds out a better one, realizing 
that had mankind been perfectly satisfied with the knowledge that a 
stroke of lightning would split a tree or destroy human life, and had 
stubbornly refused to listen to possibilities or to anything but facts, 
we would not now be able to understand and utilize electricity in the 
many ways that we do at the present time. Such men understand, 
perfectly, that the solution of most problems in natural science must 
of necessity commence with theories which must be patiently tested 
and adopted or rejected as the results demand, while the scientific man 
knows that the solution of one problem* often opens up the way for the 
solution of another, the last not infrequently having an entirely differ- 
ent application from the first. 
The science of applied entomology is growing rapidly and becoming 
