Entomological Notes. 287 



battle of Guilford Court House was fought. Mr. J. W. Jeffreys 

 states that an aged and highly respectable citizen of Orange 

 county, North Carolina, informed him that it was 'immediately 

 after this event that the Hessian fly or Hessian bug destroyed 

 their crops of wheat; and they believed and do believe to this 

 day (1839) that those soldiers left the flies or bugs as they passed 

 through the country.' The insects continued to increase and 

 spread through the Carolinas and Virginia for several years. In 

 1785 the fields in North Carolina were so overrun with them as 

 to threaten a total destruction of the grain. And at length tbe 

 crops were so destroyed in some districts that they were obliged 

 to wholljr abandon the sowing of wheat. It was four or five years 

 that they continued so numerous at this time. 



" The only particular account which was published of the insect 

 and its habits at this period, of which we have any knowledge, 

 appeared in London, in Young's Annals of Agriculture. It is 

 from this notice of it Kirby and Spence state that ' America suf- 

 fers also in its wheat and maize from the attack of an insect, 

 which, for what reason I know not, is called the chintz bug fly. 

 It appears to be apterous, and is said in scent and color to resem- 

 ble the bed bug. They travel in immense columns from field to 

 field, like locusts, destroying everything as they proceed; but 

 their injuries are confined to the states south of the fortieth de- 

 gree of north latitude. From this account the depredator here 

 noticed should belong to the tribe Geocorisir Latreille; but it 

 seems very difficult to conceive how an insect that lives by suc- 

 tion and has no mandibles, could destroy these plants so totally.' 



'About the year 1809, Mr. Jeffreys says that the chinch-bug 

 again became so destructive in North Carolina that in Orange 

 county the farmers had to abandon the sowing of wheat for two 

 years, and according to this statement the insects were subdued 

 thereby. At various other times, of which we have no record, it 

 has undoubteily been abundant in that and the adjacent states, 

 that section of country appearing to be its headquarters. 



"In 1839 we have accounts of its having again become exces- 

 sively numerous and destructive in Virginia and the Carolinas. 



"The bug had now become so numerous in Carolina and Vir- 



