RESULTS OF THE ARTIFICIAL USE OF THE WHITE-FUNGUS 
DISEASE IN KANSAS, WITH APPROVED METHODS OF FIGHT- 
ING CHINCH BUGS. 
Historical Summary of Chinch-Bug Diseases. 
Since Dr. Snow, in his First and Sixth Keports of the Experiment 
Station of the University of Kansas, has given a somewhat extensive 
account of the chinch-bug disease prior to 1896, only a brief historical 
summary is deemed necessary in this bulletin. 
Three chinch-bug diseases have engaged the attention of entomolo- 
gists — a bacterial disease and two fungous diseases. What was at 
first supposed to be a bacterial disease was, on further investigation, 
ascertained to be only a normal condition in healthy bugs, so the two 
fungous diseases are the only true ones which have received attention. 
One of the fungous diseases is due to a parasitic fungus, known to 
science as Empusa aphidis, and popularly known as the gray fungus, 
since it envelops the dead bug in a gray covering; the other is due to 
another parasitic fungus, known to science as Sporotrichum globu- 
liferum and commonly known as the white fungus, since it envelops 
the dead bug in a white cottony mass. The latter is of special interest 
to us since it is the one which has been under investigation in Kansas. 
The chinch bug was first noticed in North Carolina in 1783,° In 
the Mississippi Valley it has been known since 1823. h Since 1840 it 
has been under constant observation in Illinois and other States. It 
proved such a destructive pest from the first that entomologists have 
diligently sought for effective remedies by which its depredations 
could be avoided. 
The first evidence of disease among chinch bugs was noted by Dr. 
Henry Shimer at Mount Carroll, 111., in 1865. ° According to Dr. 
Shimer's notes, this outbreak was first noticed on low creek-bottom 
land, spreading gradually to the higher localities. The disease 
attacked both the old and the young, and was at its maximum during 
the moist, warm weather that followed the cold rains of June and the 
first part of July of that year. So complete was the destruction of 
the bugs that he wrote on August 8 : 
Scarcely one in a thousand of the vast hosts of young bugs observed in the 
middle of June yet remain alive, but plenty of dead ones may be seen every- 
a Fitch's Noxious Insects of New York, 1865. 
6 Dr. Forbes's Insect Life, vol. 1, No. 8, p. 259. 
c See Bibliography, p. 54. 
