These sucking insects of many shapes, although directly connected with the welfare of the human race, have been, until recently, the least known of the great orders of insects.
To this order belong the chinch bugs, the cause of an estimated loss to the grain growers of twenty million dollars a year; the great Phylloxera, which destroyed the vines on three million acres of French vineyards, and the San José scale, which has spread during the past ten years through every state and territory in the United States and become a menace to the fruit-growing industry.
It is of this order of the insect world that David Sharp remarks “... if any thing were to exterminate the enemies of Hemiptera we ourselves would probably be starved in a few months.” It does seem strange in face of all these statements of authority that our best friends, the insectivorous birds, are being killed out for lack of forest refuge. We spend millions to fight the pests when once they get the upper hand, but pay little or no attention to the comforts of those tireless workers, the birds, which would keep them down.
I am ashamed of such a fragmentary picture showing of this most important order, and hope someone will follow on with a bug book which will do the subject justice.
THE SQUASH BUG
(Anasa tristis, De G.)
The smell of the squash bug is known to every country boy. The odor is emitted through openings in the abdomen from special stink glands, which vary with each species.