4 CEREAL AND FORAGE INSECTS. 



wick (Fletcher) and at Nantucket, Mass., where it was taken by the 

 late Mr. Bolter, specimens being in the Bolter collection at the 

 University of Illinois. The fact here brought out is that, although 

 long ago found by Schwarz in Michigan and reported by him from 

 Minnesota, it has never been abundant inland, and is still injurious 

 only throughout the northern and central Atlantic coast region. 



TREND AND METHODS OF DISPERSION. 



It seems probable that this species was introduced into either 

 Canada or New England early in the last half of the last century. 

 If, as is entirely possible, it gained its first foothold in America about 

 Quebec or Montreal, Canada, it probably followed the same general 

 trend of diffusion as other insects that were first introduced into 

 that section, and spread southward into New England and New 

 York, thence westward and either along the south shore of Lake 

 Erie or across lower Ontario into the lower peninsula of Michigan, 

 where Mr. Schwarz collected it about Detroit in 1875. 



With reference to its diffusion southward there is considerable 

 obscurity. As stated by Mr. Schwarz, page 3, insects introduced 

 into the Boreal Zone do not spread southward in the same manner 

 that they do to the westward, and in this the gentleman is in all 

 probability correct. But the fact that this and other introduced 

 species are being discovered along the coast as far south as the mouth 

 of the Chesapeake Bay indicates that there may be some obscure force 

 at work with which entomologists are not yet familiar. The fact 

 that such species do not diffuse themselves over the country to the 

 southward in a manner that can be followed as clearly as to the 

 westward does not preclude the possibility of their occupying this 

 southern country without separate and distinct introductions. 



The current of the Gulf Stream, it is well known, is more or less 

 parallel with, but at a greater or less distance from, the shore, and, 

 while the direction is more or less northeasterly, there is a counter- 

 current that runs close inshore and in precisely the opposite direc- 

 tion. If one will stand upon the seashore and note the direction 

 from which the debris comes that is thrown upon the beach he will 

 notice that the trend is southward and that debris of this nature 

 that is thrown on the beach at low tide is caught up as the tide 

 comes in and is lodged still farther to the southward. 



It does not seem impossible, therefore, that these insects may be 

 carried into the sea by streams, or perhaps by winds blowing offshore 

 at points along the New England and New Jersey coasts, carried 



a According to some notes given me by Dr. F. H. Chittenden, the species was not 

 found about Ithaca, N. Y., up to 1884, but was noted there in abundance in 1904. 

 Also he had noted it abundantly about South Woodstock, Conn., in 1888, and along 

 the seashore on Coney Island in 1891. 



