56 
the protection of corn; bnt it may best be used in combination 
with some obstruction to the passage of the chinch bug from 
small grain and grass to corn,—either ditches and furrows, as de¬ 
scribed above, or belts of coal-tar along the border of the field. 
A mixture of coal-tar with oil or grease, ten parts to one, will 
last without hardening in the sun, from five to ten times as long 
as the pure tar, but is too fluid to be poured directly on the 
ground. 
Tobacco water was found frequently fatal to chinch bugs of all 
ages, but was apparently less effective than the kerosene emulsion. 
An emulsion of coal-tar likewise gave promise of usefulness, having 
the advantage in cost over the kerosene mixture, but being some¬ 
what less convenient of application. 
On the other hand, infusion of lobelia, coal-tar water, tur¬ 
pentine emulsion, lime-water, fresh gas-lime, arsenic, London 
purple, Paris green, the “Egyptian insecticide,” buhach, corrosive 
sublimate, and steam, were applied to chinch bugs with discourag¬ 
ing results. 
Some starvation experiments not began until September 4, were 
unsatisfactory because of the lateness of the period, and because 
most of the bugs from the district where the specimens used in 
our experiments were collected, proved to be already weakened by 
disease. Adults and young,—some just hatched,—confined on a 
dry surface and without food, died in from one to six days. 
Other young, taken as they hatched, lived from twelve to twenty- 
four hours. 
Careful studies of the contagious diseases of chinch bugs, re¬ 
vealed in August and September, 1888, the presence of three dis¬ 
tinct forms of fungous disease, two of them identical with those 
reported by me in 1882, and the third new. All these were widely 
distributed through Southern Illinois, with the possible exception 
of the region bordering the Ohio River. 
Two of these diseases are produced by thread fungi (Entomoph- 
thora and Botrytis) which make a rapid external growth after 
the death of the insect, presently imbedding the body in a 
snow-white mold; and the third is a bacterial disease, charac¬ 
terized by a minute bacillus which has its principal seat in the 
coeca (not the Malpighian tubules) of the alimentary canal. Many 
and various culture experiments with the latter were completely 
successful; but infection experiments could not be made for want 
of specimens originally free from disease. On the other hand, 
culture experiments with the Entomophthora and Botrytis were 
tried without success. 
Among various miscellaneous notes, I have reported the failure 
of an attempt to force the chinch bug to feed on wild buckwheat 
(Polygonum dumetorum ); the very early occurrence of the chinch 
bug in Edwards county, Illinois, (in 1823, and again in 1828); the 
prostration of wheat and corn as an effect of chinch-bug injury 
(due to failure of development of the latest circle of “brace; 
. ti 
