FOOD PLANTS. 27 
tbe injury in cultivated fields is done almost entirely by tbe young 
bugs, but in the timothy meadows the damage is due as much, if not 
more, to the depredations of the adults. 
FOOD PLANTS. 
As to food plants there can be no doubt but that these consisted 
originally of the native grasses. This is amply proven by the observa- 
tions of Fitch and Le Baron, in Illinois; Dr. J. C. Xeal, in Florida and 
Oklahoma; Marlatt, in Kansas; Schwarz. in Florida; and, recently, by 
those of Mr. Henry G. Hubbard, in the midst of the Colorado desert 
in California. Kegarding this last statement, Mr. E. A. Schwarz lias 
written to me as follows : 
You may be interested to learn that chinch l>n<>8 were collected this year (1897) 
on March 28 by Mr. H. G. Hubbard, at Salton, in the midst of the Colorado desert 
of California. This locality is considerably below the ocean level, and represent- 
an ancient extension of the Gulf of California. Even at the present time the Salton 
Basin is occasionally flooded, the water entering through Xew River, which runs 
from the mouth of the Colorado River into the Salton Basin. The specimens were 
taken on a species of coarse grass which is incrusted with a saline deposit. 
No wonder that the chinch bug is accused of being- a seashore 
species! 
Of cultivated grasses, or such as occur in cultivated fields, probably 
Setaria glauca and Panicum crus-galli are the favorites, though millet 
and Hungarian grass are apparently nearly as attractive. As early as 
1845, iu Illinois, Dr. William Le Baron, afterwards State entomologist, 
gave the food plants of the chinch bug as follows: * * * " all kinds 
of grain, corn, and herd's-grass " (timothy).* But to this day in Illi- 
nois, as shown by the observations of Professor Forbes and myself, the 
species will attack timothy only in cases where it is compelled to do so 
by reason of alack of other food. In addition to the preceding. Dr. How- 
ard gives broom corn, sorghum, chicken corn, Bermuda grass (Cynodon 
dactylum), blue grass (Poa pratensis), crab grass (Panicum 8anguinale) } 
and bottle grass (Setaria ciridis), and also states that in the rice fields 
near Savannah, Ga., in August, 1881, he observed the winged adults 
upon the heads. Prof. H. A. Morgan writes me that in 1897 it had 
become a serious enemy to "Providence"' rice in Louisiana, where for 
two years it had seriously injured corn, and I am otherwise informed 
that it is proving injurious to corn again in 1898. 1 have often found 
the adults collected in the silk of belated ears of corn in the fields in 
September, when all other parts of the plant had either become too old 
and tough to afford nourishment or else had been killed by the frosts of 
autumn. Prof. Lawrence Brunei* has recorded the insect as feeding 
npon so-called wild buckwheat (Polygonum dumetorum or P. convolve 
The writer has never seen chinch bugs attack blue grass ( Poa pratt K 
Prairie Fanner. December, 1845. 
t Report Commissioner of Agriculture. L887, pp 
