44 
the attention of farmers, one of whom told me that he had watched' 
them until he satisfied himself of their usefulness by seeing an ant 
carrying away a young chinch-bug in its jaws. I dissected a large 
number of specimens, however, from various fields, with entire- 
success, and found no trace of solid food nor of the characteristic 
fluids of insects of any kind in any of their intestines, and I 
am quite of the opinion that they frequented these fields for the 
purpose of preying upon the exudations from the punctured corn, 
and possibly also for the excrement of the bugs. The very 
common habit of these ants of appropriating the fluids exuded by 
plant-lice, is known to every one, and they have been seen likewise to 
attend several other hemipterous insects for a similar purpose. I 
myself saw one of them carrying a chinch-bug in its mouth, but 
as I also saw them carrying about young corn plant-lice {Aphis 
maiclis ) for the evident purpose of transferring them to a more suit¬ 
able situation, I greatly doubt their carnivorous intentions. 
Birds. 
Concerning the relations of birds to these insects, Prof. Riley re¬ 
marks : “The common quail of the Middle and Western States (Ortyx 
virginiana), otherwise known as the partridge in the Northern States, 
has long since been known as a most efficient destroyer of chinch- 
bugs, and the fact was some time ago published by myself in the 
‘Prairie Farmer,’ and by others in various agricultural journals 
and reports. We also have the corroborative testimony of Dr. 
Shimer, who is a good ornithologist. In the winter time, when hard 
pushed for food, this bird must devour immense numbers of the 
little pests, which winter in just such situations as are frequented 
by the quail; and this bird should be protected from the gun of 
the sportsman in every State wdiere the chinch-bug is known to run 
riot. It is gratifying to know that this fact has become sufficiently 
recognized to have gained for the bird legislative protection in 
Kansas. Prairie chickens are also reported as devouring it, but I 
do not know that any absolute proof has been given. Mr. J. W. 
Clarke, of Green Lake county, Wisconsin, also reports seeing the 
red-winged blackbird feeding on it.” 
To these statements I have only to add that among the birds 
shot in 1880, during midsummer, near Normal, when the chinch bug 
was abundant enough in Central Illinois to cause some alarm, one 
cat-bird, three brown thrushes and one meadow lark were found to 
have eaten these insects in barely sufficient number to show that 
the birds have no unconquerable prejudice against them. A single 
house wren, shot in 1832, had also eaten a few chinch-bugs. A 
little collection of fifteen birds representing eight common species 
killed in a wheat fieid in which chinch-bugs were abundant and 
injurious, were entirely innocent of any depredation on them. Not 
a trace of a single specimen was found in any of the stomachs. 
From the above it is clear that birds have no special objections to 
this insect as an article of food, but on the other hand no sufficient 
preference for it to induce them to search for it in its ordinary 
situations, and their influence upon its numbers is, and probably 
must remain, purely trivial. 
