54 
Remarkable evidence of the wholesale destruction of cliinch-bugs 
by this or some extremely similar fungus has lately been given me 
by Hon. J. W. Robison, of Tazewell county, whom I have learned 
to trust implicitly as a very close and intelligent observer. He re¬ 
members that several years ago, the cliinch-bugs in gram fields 
died in vast numbers, accumulating in piles of as many as half a 
bushel in a place, so that the masses could be seen at some little dis¬ 
tance among the grain. These collections of the bugs would be partly 
dead and partly living, many of the former being covered with a 
white mold bursting from their bodies, while the abdomens of the 
latter would be distended and brown and smooth, and the bugs 
themselves very sluggish. The abdomens of these living bugs would 
frequently break off at a touch, and even fall to powder, the living 
thorax afterwards walking away. The insects attacked and killed 
were of all sizes and ages. The phenomena here described are so 
closely similar to those appearing in the house-fly as a result of 
its fungus affection, that there can be little question of their sub¬ 
stantial identity. According to Mr. Robison’s observations and 
recollections, this affection of the chinch-bugs is much the most de¬ 
structive during periods of moist and sultry weather, such as is 
usually more favorable to fungus growths in general. 
I have already shown the possibility of artificially cultivating the 
parasitic bacteria which I discovered; and that this second ^parasite 
could likewise be successfully reared, is rendered very probable by 
the experiments on a similar fungus made by an eminent Russian 
naturalist (Elias Metschnikoff), as published in the Zoologischer 
Anzeiger for 1880, pp. 44-47. This article is of such special import¬ 
ance and interest in this connection that I translate it almost entire : 
“The researches which I shall now report were undertaken by me 
last year [1878], with the purpose of discovering some means of 
combating an injurious beetle, Anisoplia austriaca, and some other 
species of the same genus, extremely widely distributed throughout 
all Southern Russia. I first established the fact that the larvae of 
Anisoplia live in the earth, which subjected it to several diseases. 
One of these was induced by the attacks of Leptoclera denticulata , 
Schn., while the others were caused by parasitic plants. One very 
widespread putrid disease has a great resemblance to the ‘pebrine’ of 
the silk-worm, but is distinguished by the fact that it is produced by 
parasitism of a species of Bacillus in the blood, while the true pe¬ 
brine is due to a Micrococcus. Another disease, which 1 have called 
the ‘green muscardine,’ is occasioned by a parasitic fungus, whose 
spores, appearing after the death of the host, have a characteristic 
green color. The fungus itself has a close resemblance to the species 
of Isaria, its oval spores sometimes forming chains, and may be 
called Isaria destructor. The spores sown upon the skin of the beetle 
larva send forth a sac-like process, which penetrates the cuticle and 
forms a mycelium under the skin. Oval conidia then appear, which 
enter the blood, and are remarkable for an extraordinarily rapid 
multiplication by fission and budding. Later they are transformed 
into necklace-like gonidia (using this word according to Cohn), and 
fill the entire body of the insect- After the death of the larva, fine 
hyphse proceed from these gonidia, which soon form a white cover¬ 
ing over the whole body of the insect. Later, chandelier-like bundles 
