PUNGODS ENEMIES. 41 
epidemic amon^ grasshoppers in western Minnesota, Dakota, and north- 
ern Iowa in 1872. This position of Dr. Thomas in support of Dr. 
Shinier may he regarded as a second step in our advance in a knowl- 
edge of the influence of meteorological conditions on the chinch bug. 
It paved the way for further research in this direction. 
Fungous enemies of the chinch bug determined. — While the subject of 
epidemic and contagious diseases of insects was discussed to a greater 
or less extent among scientific men, there was a decided lack of actual 
experimentation, and none at all with the fungous parasites of the 
chinch bug until 1882 and 1883, when Prof. S. A. Forbes began what 
ultimately proved to be a long series of studies of the chinch bug and its 
natural enemies. At this time, 1882. Professor Forbes was more espe- 
cially interested in the bacterial diseases of the chinch bug, and though 
he found, at Jacksonville, 111., many specimens of dead chinch bugs 
embedded in a dense mat of white fungous threads, which sometimes 
almost hid the bod} 7 and reminded him of the fatal disease previously 
reported by Dr. Shimer, yet except to secure from Prof. T. J. Burrill a 
determination of this fungus as belonging to the Fntomophthora no 
progress was made in the study of this particular phase of the chinch- 
bug problem.* 
In July, 1887. Professor Forbes found a second fungus attacking the 
chinch bng in Clinton County. 111., and which he determined as belonging 
to the genus Botrytus, but this conclusion has since been revised and 
the species is now known as SporotHchium globuliferum Speg. This 
discovery of a second species of entomogenous fungi and its separation 
from the Entomophthora, comprises what maybe justly termed a third 
step in the advancement of our knowledge of this problem. Professor 
Forbes, however, seems to have still been too deeply interested in his 
bacterial studies to pay any special attention to the other phases of 
his problem, further than to record the occurrence of his new P>otrytus 
in various localities in Illinois, and in one instance on a beetle. Parandra 
brunnea (observed by Mr. John Marten, at Champaign), and. similarly, 
to note the occurrence of the still specifically undetermined Bntomoph- 
thora.T 
The scene of action now changes from Illinois to Kansas, and to Prof. 
F. II. Snow belongs the credit of first applying the knowledge that 
had been gained up to that time (1889) by confining supposed healthy 
chinch bugs with others affected by either one or the other of the 
fungi, or possibly both Entomophthora and Sporotrichiuiu, and using 
the bugs thus infected for the propagation, in the field, o[' the disease 
from which they had died. 
As early as 1887-88 Professor Snow expressed, in the Sixth Biennial 
Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, the opinion that ••in 
the warfare of man against his insect toes a most valuable ally will be 
Twelfth report of tin- State Entomologist of Illinois, pp. 17 51, L882, 
t Sixteenth Report of state Entomologist of Illinois, pp, 16-49, ; vvv 
