84 
THE CHINCH BUG. 
interest that the writer has reproduced it here, together with figures 
of the larval, pupal, and adult stages of the insect < figs. I s and 19). 
Professor Sajo writes a- follow-: 
in the article od the eighth annual meeting of the Association of Economic 
Entomologists (No. 26, pp. 401-403, Illustr. Wochensehrift fur Entomologie) the 
very instructive observations of .Mr. Webster on the "chinch bug" (Blissus 
l< ucopterus) in the State of Ohio were discussed. 
In view of this communication I will L r ive more in detail that which I have 
observed concerning our European species of this genus, namely Blissus doria 
Ferr. 
Like the North American larger species, the smaller European one appears in 
two forms, namely, the wingless and the winged. The firsl describer of this 
species, Ferrari, in Genoa, recognized only the wingless form, which with its 
aborted wings looks very much like Hemipteron-nymphs, and probably by all 
entomologists who previously saw it was not considered as a sexually developed 
adult, hut only the immature form 
• f -'"me already known species. I 
discovered the winged form seven- 
teen year- ago i 1880) in the steppes 
sand desert, called " Nyires " of 
the Kis-Szent-Miklos, and de- 
scribed the same." 
I at that time made known the 
characters of the immature form-. 
which can not he confused with 
the individuals which have readied 
complete sexual development, in 
that the immature individuals are 
vermilion red while adult indi- 
viduals are dark brown. It is 
interesting that the relationship 
between the winged (macropte- 
rous) and the wingless (brachypterous) individuals of the American and Euro- 
pean species is very different. For while in America those individuals which 
reach maturity are almost always winged, with us in Europe they are in gen- 
eral only short-winged, and individuals capable of flight are not observed: 
and the fully developed macropterous individuals were not thus far. according 
to my knowledge, found in any other place than in the central Hungarian sand 
dunes already named, and here they occurred only on a single little portion which 
only measured a few paces in diameter. It was a " Dunenhugel" (sandy hill) 
covered with high, scattered poplars, whose fallen, dried foliage Sparsely cov- 
ered I he ground. 
Here lived the colonies i^\' BliSSUS doria on the bases of the bushy, -rowing 
grass, almost under the surface of the ground, and well concealed. The habits 
of the European species are also in the main similar to those of its American 
relative, since the latter also lives only on grasses, and during its development 
also lives very close to the surface of the ground. 
It is extremely remarkable that, even though /»'. doriw is very widely distrib- 
■'::■■:-,■■ 
Fig. 19.— Blissus doria:: Wingless form at left; winged 
form at right. (From illustration prepared in the 
Bureau of Entomology.) 
K. Sajo: " Die bisher unbekannte makroptere Form von Blissus d<>ri<i Ferr. 
Entomolog. Nachrichten, L880, p. 2 
