114 



Illinois Natural History Survey Bulletin 



Vol. 27. Art. 2 



insignificant little creatures, which in popular 

 parlance are called "bugs," but which the sci- 

 entific world chooses to denominate "insects." 

 Scarcely a year elapses in which the wheat 

 crop of several States of the Union is not more 

 or less completely ruined by the Chinch-bug, 

 the Hessian Fly, the Wheat Midge, or the 

 Joint Worm. . . . The White Grub attacks 

 indiscriminately the timothy in the meadows, 

 the corn in the plowed field, the young fruit 

 trees in the nursery, and the strawberry beds 

 in the garden; always lurking insidiously 

 under ground, and only making its pres- 

 ence known to the impoverished agriculturist 

 by the losses which it has already inflicted 

 upon him. ... at periodic intervals the 

 Army-worm marches over their fields like a 

 destroying pestilence; while in Kansas, Ne- 

 braska, and Minnesota, and the more westerly 

 parts of Missouri and Iowa, the Hateful 

 Grasshopper, in particular seasons, swoops 

 down with the western breeze in devouring 

 swarms from the Rocky Mountains, and, like 

 its close ally, the Locust of Scripture and of 

 Modern Europe, devours every green thing 

 from off the face of the earth (Walsh .i- Riley 

 1868^:1). 



Certainly Walsh was in a position to 

 know the armyworm problem, because in 

 1861, 6 years before the creation of the 

 State Entomologist's Office, the Rock 

 Island and Chicago and the Illinois Cen- 

 tral railroads granted him, as a member 

 of the Illinois Natural History Society, 

 passes that permitted him to spend sev- 

 eral weeks studying a major armyworm 

 outbreak that developed in central and 

 southern Illinois. That fall, in typical 

 Walsh style, he wrote: 



. . . I always hate to give nothing for 

 something, and having been obliged by the 

 railroad companies, I endeavored, to the extent 

 of my poor abilities, to return the obligation, 

 by seeking a remedy for a little pest, that has 

 this year destroyed one-fourth part of the tame 

 hay grown within the limits of the State 

 (Walsh 1861:350). 



This was the introduction to an ex- 

 tremely interesting and informative 15- 

 page report on the ecology of the army- 

 worm and its natural enemies which he 

 appended to an essay prepared for de- 

 livery at the annual meeting of the Illi- 

 nois Agricultural Society. Walsh re- 

 ported : 



When they [armyworms] leave the meadows 

 in which they originate, they travel on — some- 

 times as far as half a mile — until they meet 

 with wheat, rse, oats, corn, sorghum, or Hun- 

 garian grass "(Walsh 1861:351). 

 Many instances are on record of the great 

 difficulty with which they have been kept out 



of houses which happened to lie in their path 

 (Walsh 1861:352). 



From the Prairie Farmer of Julv 4, 

 1861, Walsh (1861:351) quoted ' the 

 words of "an accurate observer" who 

 described an infestation of armyworms : 

 "As to their number, they have been seen 

 moving from one field to another, three 

 tiers deep, a ditch has been filled with 

 them to the depth of three inches in 



H.A.LF AN HOUR." 



Walsh was fortunate in being able to 

 acquire, through contacts with a number 

 of pioneer settlers, valuable notes on his- 

 toric armyworm outbreaks of the past. 

 Some of these notes seem worthy of repe- 

 tition as an e.xample of the fund of un- 

 published entomological history and 

 knowledge that has passed from one gen- 

 eration to another: 



As we might expect from the laws govern- 

 ing the development of insect life, the army- 

 worms make their appearance in noticeable 

 numbers in different years in different parts 

 of the State. I have no doubt that they exist in 

 small numbers in every part of the State from 

 year to year; for although they have never 

 appeared till 1861 in the neighborhood of Rock 

 Island, in such numbers as to attract attention, 

 yet I myself captured a single specimen of 

 the army-worm moth in Rock Island county, in 

 each of three years, '58, '59 and '60. At Okaw 

 they are recorded to have appeared in 1850; 

 in the south part of Vermilion county, in 1835 ; 

 and Mr. Joseph Bragshaw, of Perry county, 

 says that they visited that county in '25, '26, 

 '34, '39, '41 and '42. Colonel Dougherty, of 

 Jonesboro, in Union county, one of the oldest 

 and most respected citizens of Southern Illi- 

 nois, informed me that about 1818 or '20 they 

 were far more numerous there than in 1861, 

 and that in 1861 there would not be a single 

 cock of hay put up in his neighborhood save 

 one meadow which was part clover and part 

 timothy, and which I can myself testify was 

 badly "patchy," there not being more than an 

 eighth part of it which would turn out a good 

 swarth of clover, the timothy being "nil" 

 throughout. In 1838 again, according to the 

 Colonel, there were but few of them. In 1842 

 they were about as in 1861 ; and in 1856 they 

 occurred onlv in small numbers (Walsh 1861: 

 353). 



It certainly is an encouraging sign of the 

 progress of entomological discovert' in this 

 State, that a noxious insect of primarv impor- 

 tance should have been, for the first time, 

 traced through all its transformations in the 

 year 1861 by no less than four citizens of Illi- 

 nois to my certain knowledge — I refer to Mr. 

 Cvrus Thomas of Murphysboro, Mr. Emerv of 

 the Prairie Farmer, Col. Doughertv of Jones- 

 boro, and last and least mvself (Walsh 1861: 

 356). 



