5 
INFLUENCE OF EXCESSIVE DROUTH. 
The general conditions precedent to this chinch-bng uprising 
onform to the established principle that a succession of dry and. 
^arm summers has most to do with the origin of a chinch-bug 
utbreak; but it has not been heretofore noticed that drouth may 
ecome too severe for even this drouth-loving species. In some 
arts of Washington county the corn crop, and even the field 
rasses infested by the chinch bug, had been almost completely 
estroyed, in 1886, as early as the beginning of August, thousands 
f acres standing at the time as dry as in midwinter. This coming 
t the breeding season of the second generation, their multiplica- 
ion was cut short, large numbers of the young perished in the 
elds, and the old, no longer able to find food there or to mature 
tieir eggs, were driven in immense numbers to the woods. 
A visit made to this region at harvest time in 1887 showed that 
lany fields at a little distance from the woods contained scarcely 
chinch bug where there had been myriads the season before; and 
aat fields in which these pests occurred in numbers sufficient to do 
srious mischief were almost invariably beside woodlands, or, if at 
little distance, that only the borders nearest the woods were 
affering. In the western part of the adjacent county of Clinton 
visited at the same time), where the corn had been much less 
ampletely killed the year before, the chinch bugs were scattered 
very where, even miles from woods, and the early damage to small 
rain was much more severe. 
EFFECT OF ABANDONING CORN AS A CROP. 
These facts give us a hint of the results possible in a small 
rain country, if corn be abandoned for a time to reduce the food 
apply of the second generation. They amount, in fact, to a nat- 
ral experiment on a Very large scale, with this procedure. The 
ssults were certainly interesting; but the method has this draw- 
ack, that the meadows and pastures may be thus exposed to 
amage by desperate and starving hordes of chinch bugs searching 
ae country for food. No serious injury was done, however, in 
lis way to grass lands in the district indicated. While we shall 
3e later that meadows may be used freely and extensively by the 
hinch bug as breeding grounds in spring, this is usually only 
rhere a fresh and succulent growth of young grass offers an ex- 
raordinary temptation. It would seem that the abandonment of corn 
herever small grain is largely raised may be at least as effective a 
reventive measure as the abandonment of wheat where corn is 
le principal crop. Indeed, it may well be more so, since the 
btempt to reduce the first brood by limiting wheat culture must 
e made during the season of active growth for nearly every sort 
E vegetation, the chinch bugs having, therefore, at worst, an 
bundance of every kind of food save wheat; but the second brood 
