86 THE CHINCH BUG. 
the summer, and it is the young stages that are especially sensitive to the fun- 
gus attack, as has proven to be the case in America. 
Among insects there may possibly be found Blissus enemies, even though the 
emely penetrating odor of this bug, which is identical with that of the one 
living in beds in bouses, may serve as a protection. 
Taking all of this together, we observe that our European species is in less 
danger than the American, and that ii is not subjected to catastrophes of total 
destruction, so far as has yet been i bs rvable in the stationary localities of occur- 
rence in the open field, for 1 have never yet observed a sudden disappearance 
from the localities known to me. It is not necessary, therefore, for it to be 
continually hunting up new fields in which to thrive, and there was no appar- 
ent reason which in the struggle cor existence would have given preponderance 
to the long-winged form: and so in time, in the generation of our species, 
which originally, perhaps, was full winged, the winged form became less and 
less numerous, until to-day we see almost entirely brachypterous individuals 
in the adult stage, exactly the same as in the bedbug, Acanthia lectularia, with 
this difference, that among the swarming masses of the latter nowadays oot 
a single example with fully developed wings can be found, fortunately for us. 
It is evident that the long-winged tendency in />'. doria is disappearing, and 
the time may come when one will he unable to find any long-winged specimens. 
The designated dangers, on the contrary, against which the chinch bug must 
fight in North America require very strong migratory powers, and. conse- 
quently, well-developed wings, through which this especially significant differ- 
ence between B. doria and B. leucopterus has been brought about. 
As to the question whether or not our species shall be considered injurious. I 
can answer that it in no wise belongs to the entirely indifferent insects, but. on 
the contrary, contributes to the complete drying up of the rather sparse grj ss 3 
of our steppe meadows during the summer. But since it has not thus far 
boused in the cultivated fields, it can not he placed upon the black list of seri- 
ous depredators. Whether, moreover, in the future, when in consequence of 
the continued destruction of its herding meadows, its original food plants dis- 
appear more and more. 11. doriw may become, like so many other insect species, 
a depredator through necessity can only be conjectured. We have in this re- 
gard already recorded entirely too many remarkable transformations in the 
menu of other species to disregard entirely the possibility of a similar transfor- 
mation in the life habits of our B. doriw. 
I wish also at this time to state, for the benefit of our many readers who may 
not he familiar with it. that in the dimorphic bugs, especially those in which 
the macropterous and brachypterous forms are found simultaneonsly, the 
former possess a much stronger and broader thorax than the latter. As a 
result of this difference in their physical structure, one is. when comparing 
them for the first time, easily inclined to designate them as two distinct sp< 
In addition to this, there is in Blissus the strikingly beautiful coloration of 
the long-winged specimens, whose clavus and corium art' 1 i lt 1 i t ocher-yellow, and 
the unusually large membrane, which is about twice as large as corium and 
clavus together and of an entirely milk-white color, making the long-winged 
individuals very prepossessing. The individuals with rudimentary wings, on 
the contrary, are of an obscure chocolate-brown. The larvae are. as has already 
been stated, of a bright vermilion-red color, marked with black.*" 
\\\\\\ the foregoing, relative to the habits of an allied spfecies <>1* 
Blissus, it seems to the writer that we can the better understand how. 
'Translated from the German by Mr. < '. W. Mally. 
• 
