6 THE FRIT-FLY. 
periments. The jars containing such spores were kept over 
winter in warm rooms, cold rooms, and out of doors; in 
either case the spores could not be made to germinate in 
spring, and only those that were taken from the bugs killed 
by the disease could be successfully utilized to start fresh 
cultures. 
The question is often asked: does this fungus, the spores 
of which are distributed, always kill the bugs? The more 
the writer and his assistant have worked with this plant 
the less do they feel satisfied with it as a remedy upon which 
we can depend. No doubt immense numbers of chinch-bugs 
are covered with the fungus in the fields where the disease is 
found, but the question naturally arises: does the disease 
kill healthy bugs or only those that are already feeble and 
that would die whether the disease was present or not? 
Notwithstanding the many very favorable reports received 
from farmers that have used the spores it remains still an 
open question whether it is not after all safer to use the 
other remedies proposed in the First Annual Report than 
to depend entirely upon the introduction of spores. 
Fig. 1 (plate I) shows this injurious insect in its different 
stages ofgrowth. Asingle egg is shown ina, as well as others 
upon the roots and upon a lower leaf. In 4 is shown the 
very young bug, and in ¢, d, and ¢ the later stages, while f 
shows the adult and mature insect. All the figures are en- 
larged; their natural size is indicated, however, by the hair- 
lines near them, and bugs, natural size, are also shown upon 
the stems of the infested plant. 
Di bee Robey ve 
( Oscinis soror Macq.). 
During the summer and early part of the fall numerous 
letters were received from many parts of the state, in which 
the writers complained about minute worms which infested 
the stems of wheat just above a joint from three to four 
inches above the ground. The specimens received at the 
same time showed that, as a général rule, the first and 
second joints of the plant were infested. Some farmers com- 
plained that their crop of wheat was thus very materially 
