282 CHINCH BUG IN ILLINOIS. 



site character, and the ravages of this insect were at once sup- 

 pressed. Mr. Weller, writing in November, says, " Our fears 

 were disappointed and our hopes exceeded as to this pest, by the 

 hand of an overruling Providence. The season turned off wet 

 and very propitious to crops of all kinds, and the ravages of this 

 bug were arrested. Even fields of wheat that had been greatly 

 injured, suddenly revived and produced tolerable crops; and the 

 corn crop, which last season in places here, was ruined, escaped 

 uninjured." (Cultivator, vol. viii, p. 21.) 



It was about this period that the Chinch bug began to be no- 

 ticed along the upper Mississippi, and through the northern 

 parts of Illinois. It made its appearance there simultaneously 

 with the establishment of the Mormons at Nauvoo (1840-1844) 

 and many ignorant people firmly believed they were introduced 

 there by these strange religionists, and " Mormon lice " became 

 the name by which they were currently designated, through that 

 district. When we have such instances of the credulity and ig- 

 norance of our own day and generation, let us not smile at our 

 patriotic grandsires for deeming that the Hessian soldiers were 

 breeding and shaking off pestilent vermin and scattering them 

 over the country wherever they marched. It is quite probable 

 that these insects were originally natives of Illinois, and now 

 became multipled in consequence of the settlement of the coun- 

 try and the extensive cultivation of wheat, giving them a copi- 

 ous supply of more congenial food than they previously had ac- 

 cess to; or if it was newly introduced there at that period, as 

 was universally believed, it probably arrived by gradually ad- 

 vancing from the south. In that excellent periodical, the Prai- 

 rie Farmer, which has contributed so much to render the agri- 

 culturists of the west enlightened and intelligent in their voca- 

 tion, several communications upon the chinch bug appeared in 

 1845 and the following years. An enlarged figure of the insect 

 was given at this time (vol. v, p. 287) and in September 1850 

 vol. x, pp. 280, 281) a summary account of the insect with a 

 description and a scientific name for it, appeared from the pen 

 of Dr. Le Baron. As this is one of the most important origi- 

 nal papers which has ever appeared, relating to this insect, and 

 the volume containing it is now nowhere accessible, we repro- 

 duce it erftire in the subsequent pages. 



