RESULTS OF FIELD APPLICATIONS IX OHIO. 4!) 
breeding season for the chinch bug during the forepart of the breeding 
period. The result was that over some sections (see fig. 7) there were 
myriads of young bugs. Then the rains came on, and there were pre- 
sented the two essential requisites for success with the fungus, viz, 
chinch bugs and wet weather. 
Soon the demands for supplies of Sporotrichium began to pour in, and 
1,200 packages were distributed within a few weeks, instructions being 
given to place the contents of the boxes where the chinch bugs were 
massed in greatest abundance, giving preference to the lower and 
damper localities in the fields. 
After the distribution had been finished I visited the sections where 
the outbreak of chinch bugs had been the most severe and where the 
larger portion of the Sporotrichium had been distributed. There was 
certainly no mistaking the effect of the fungus. Going to the place in 
a field (generally a wheat field) where the fungus had been introduced, 
the track of the chinch bugs as they moved in any direction was in 
many cases almost literally paved with the dead bugs more or less 
enveloped in their winding sheets of white. Along ravines, dead-fur- 
rows, or other depressions, the ground would be nearly white, the dead 
diminishing in numbers as the higher grounds were reached, though 
these were by no means free from corpses. In one instance the bugs had 
left a field of wheat at harvest, the Sporotrichium having been applied 
there before the movement began, and entered an adjoining cornfield. 
The way was marked with white, not only the surface of the ground, but 
on stirring up the mellow soil of the edge of the cornfield it was found 
to be literally full of dead chinch bugs to the depth of 2 or 3 inches, 
the white fungus-covered bodies strongly contrasting with the black 
color of the rich loam. Not only this, but under the sheaths of the 
leaves and on the leaves themselves hundreds of dead were to be found 
on the outer rows of corn, on the grass and weeds, and, indeed, almost 
everywhere. Millions of chinch bugs were certainly destroyed in this 
one field. 
In other fields, where the number of bugs had been less, the dead 
were less numerous, and then they were more apt to be scattered over 
the leaves of corn, as in such cases a diseased bug seems to be animated 
with a desire to crawl upward on any object which presents itself, just 
as a larva of the clover-leaf weevil, Phytonomus punctatus, when 
attacked by Entomophthora sphuerottperma (Fres.) will climb to the tip 
of a vertical blade of grass and coil itself around it, and, holding it in 
the grasp of death, remain in that position so strongly attached that 
the winds and rains fail to dislodge it until it has become disintegrated. 
In other localities, where no Sporotrichium had been distributed, the 
ravages had certainly been greater, and I failed to find any indication 
of the presence of the fungus. So far as my observation extended, 
unless there were a sufficient number of chinch bugs massed to become 
injurious, the fungus had but little effect upon them. In other wouls, 
5908— No. 15 1 
