PROBABLE ORIGIN AND DIFFUSION. $2 
OCCURRENCE OF THE LONG AND SHORT WINGED FORMS AND THEIH DISTRIBUTION. 
The occurrence of both the long and short-winged forms, intermixed 
along our seacoasts and in the northeastern section of the country, 
but not elsewhere, shows very plainly that this dimorphism is not due 
to the temperature of any particular locality, but must be regarded as 
having been brought about by disuse of the wings for a considerable 
period of time, thus indicating a seashore habit on the one side, while 
the total lack of the short-winged form elsewhere indicated otherwise. 
In a paper presented before the Entomological Society of Washing- 
ton,* "On the insects found on Uniolapanieula in southeastern Florida." 
by Mr. E. A. Schwarz, the author stated that Blisxus leucoptcrus occurred 
in large numbers on the upper part of the plant, the imagos and larger 
young among the ears and the smaller individuals between the upper 
blades. Mr. Schwarz attributes this habit to the tough woody nature 
of the storm-beaten plant nearer the ground, thereby driving the insects 
to the more tender though more exposed portion of the plant. In con 
nection with this statement the writer tells us that the insect occurs 
in that southern latitude only in the short-winged form, and that in the 
examination of thousands of specimens from that region he had never 
found a single long- winged specimen. Under date of May 4, 1896, Mr. 
W. H. Harrington wrote me of this species as follows: "In September, 
1800, 1 found it at Aulac, almost on the border between Xew Brunswick 
and Xova Scotia. It seemed not uncommon and occurred under stones, 
about the roots of grass, in a pasture adjoining the marsh where I 
found Diabrotica longicornis, the pasture being on the upland skirting 
the marsh. Both the long and short-winged condition occurred, as in 
Cape Breton. f Dr. A. S. Packard communicated to Dr. J. A. Lintner the 
following extract from his diary, "June 17, 1871, at Salem, Mass., chinch 
bugs with wing covers extending over the basal third of the abdomen, 
seen in copula, end to end.t In the serious outbreak of this insect in 
the timothy meadows of northern New York, in 188:2 and 1S83, about 
20 per cent of the bugs were of this short-winged form* 
Although Dr. Asa Fitch, as early as 1855, refers to this form along 
with nine others, he does not give the source from which he obtained 
specimens, but just previous to this he says (p. 287) that he had met 
with but three specimens from his own State, and these were found on 
willow in the spring of 1847.|| Had any of these been of the short- 
winged form he would have been very likely to have mentioned the 
fact. Mr. E. P. Van Duzeefl states that he had known of the occur- 
rence of the species in western New York as early as 1874, and had 
also found it at Bidgeway and Muskoka, Ontario. Ordinarily the 
* Proo. Ent. Soo., Washington, Vol.1, p. 101. Read Noy.3, 1887. 
t Canadian Entomologist. Vol. XIV. p. 218. 
tLintner's Second Report. State Entomologist of New York, p. li>4. 
$ Second Report, State Entomologist of New York. p. 156. 
|| Second Report on Noxious Insects of New York. p. 291. 
H Canadian Entomologist. Vol. XVII, pp. iV!>-10. L886. 
