THE CHINCH BUG. 
17 
were alive. This observation was made in the common farm corn-fields, as they 
might he found anywhere all over tfie wide country, for in autumn the chinch hugs 
remained in great numbers in the corn-husks and under the sheaths of the blades as 
well as in other winter retreats. Upon various occasions, as the winter advanced, I 
brought in corn-husks filled with ice, inclosing the chinch bugs in the crystallized 
element; when the ice was thawed they were able to run, apparently unaffected by 
that degree of cold. It is therefore proved that these insects possess vitality suffi- 
cient to withstand the effect of a temperature below the freezing-point, and perhaps 
below zero, as must have been their condition in these ice-bound husks ; but when in 
the open air, exposed to the sweeping prairie winds, 15° to 20° degrees below zero, 
for a long time, they succumb to the cold. 
March 7, 1865, the snow having cleared off from the ground, I examined the condi- 
tion of a host of these chinch bugs that had chosen for their winter covering cord- 
wood sticks lying on the ground, entirely surrounded by frost and ice ; of these 20 per 
cent, were living ; those that were more fortunate in their selection of winter quarters 
fared much better. From a single handful of leaves picked up at one grasp from be- 
neath an apple tree I obtained 335 living and 312 dead chinch bugs ; and of their lady- 
bird enemies that had entered the same winter quarters with them, 50 were living 
and 10 dead. Of these chinch bugs I placed a number in comfortable quarters in the 
house in a small pasteboard box, not in a stove room, together with some coleopterous 
insects casually gathered among the chinch bugs ; after one month I found the latter 
all dead and the former living. 
The entire month of March was rain, snow, thawing, freezing, alternately, seeming 
to be very uncomfortable for any living creature to remain out of doors with so poor 
a shelter and on top of the ground. 
April 1-6, I again made repeated examinations of these chinch bugs in their winter 
quarters, and found about the same proportions of them living as noted on the 7th 
of March. At this time they wandered away on foot from their winter quarters. 
Mr. G. A. Waters, in the Farmers’ Review for October 19, 1887, gives 
the following interesting observation bearing on the same point : 
In 1881-82 I observed a bunch of fodder that had fallen into a ditch that the heavy 
rains had washed near by a shock. The fodder had been overflowed with water, 
which had stood over the fodder long enough for a sheet of ice to form over it. The 
water subsiding in a few days and- some thaw occurring, I pulled the stalks out 
of the mud to get the ears of corn off, and in husking the ears found quite a number 
of chinch bugs which had been immersed for a week or more. On exposing them to 
the warm sun they crawled around lively. 
Where they are hibernating in numbers they can often be detected 
more readily by their strong “ bed-buggy ” odor than by sight, as was 
pointed out by Dr. Riley. Dr. Lintuer, in October, 1883, found this 
method of searching for them more convenient and infallible than look- 
ing for them. 
Mr. Bruner calls our attention to the fact that the Osage and other 
brushy hedges in the West are great collectors of leaves and trash 
blown there by winds, and that they form exceptionally good hibernat- 
ing places for the Chinch Bugs, which take advantage of them in great 
numbers. So great a nuisance are the hedges from this point of view, 
that Mr. Bruner seriously advocates their gradual removal and the sub- 
stitution of a less compact division between fields. 
12734— Bull. 17 2 
