48 
ing to adhere in long serpentine strings of twenty to thirty or 
more when actively dividing in liquids, and becoming short and 
broad, with pale center, when forming spores,—this center being 
simply the single unstained spore developed in each segment or 
cell. 
The first examples of the entomophthorous infection certainly 
seen in Illinois since 1882, were obtained by us from the corn 
fields of Clinton county,* September 13, 1888, and the next, Sep¬ 
tember 18, at Albion, where this fungous disease was, however, 
less prevalent than that due to Botrytis. Its possible occurrence in 
the Edgewood region was indicated by an accidental observation 
made September 22. When examining a pupa obtained there on 
the 8th of August, I found its fluids filled with fragments of the 
entomophthorous mycelium. 
Letters and specimens from Minnesota and Iowa show the ex¬ 
traordinary prevalence of this affection there, where it is evidently 
the dominant chinch bug disease,—a condition in peculiar contrast 
with that of the southern part of this State, where the Entomoph- 
thora is relatively infrequent, and the Botrytis and bacterial dis¬ 
eases are the prevailing maladies. 
Our first positive observation of the Botrytis disease of the 
chinch bug was made, as has been said already, near Shattuc, 
Clinton county, July 7, 1887. The specimens obtained were not 
critically studied at the time, and the fungus was first positively 
recognized as parasitic on the chinch bug August 7, 1888, on 
specimens obtained at Flora, in Clay county. 
The occurrence of this disease on a scale sufficient to affect 
notably the numbers of the chinch bug, was first observed Sep¬ 
tember 18 by one of my assistants, Mr. John Marten, at Albion, 
Edwards county. The insects were at this time much less numer¬ 
ous there than three or four weeks before; in some neighborhoods 
not more than one tenth as common. The apparent cause of this 
decrease was a fungous disease, the mold-covered victims of which 
were so freely sprinkled beneath the corn as to suggest a recent 
flurry of snow. On one measured area, for example, of only two 
square inches, twenty-six bugs were counted, covered with the 
fungous growth—mostly that of Botrytis. Mr. William Over, a 
local correspondent of the office, reported that this affection of the 
chinch bug was observed there at oats harvest. 
The same Botrytis was detected in chinch bugs at Ashley and 
Nashville, in Washington county, September 18. It occurred 
freely in our breeding cages, where living chinch bugs were kept 
•Notes made in the fields of this region July 24, 1888, make it probable that the beginnings of 
this disease were observed at that time, although the specimens collected show only the Botrytis. 
The occurrence was recorded, however, of numerous dead bugs, adults and pupae, imbedded in a 
fungus resembling that of muscardine, sometimes fastened to the leaves, sometimes beneath the 
sheaths, and occasionally in the dirt, as if they had been washed down by rains. In two cases, bugs 
were attached to the leaves by a scanty mycelium, the insects themselves showing little external 
fungous growth. This latter appearance is quite characteristic of Entomophthora, Even as far 
back as March 22, 1887, I noticed at Highland, in Madison county, that fully half of the chinch bug* 
in grass upon the headlands of fields of corn were dead, and usually covered with mold. 
