PREVIOUS IDEAS ON THE DIFFUSION. 79 
This theory was based upon the fact that the original description was 
drawn up from a specimen from the eastern shore of Virginia, collected 
by Mr. Say himself,* and, as before stated, the earliest destruction on 
record caused by this insect occurred in North Carolina, and they also 
committed great depredations in Virginia in 1839. Up to this time it 
had been supposed that it was a southern species, confined to the 
country south of latitude 40° north. But about this time it appeared 
in Illinois, at Nauvoo, simultaneously with the settlement of the Mor- 
mons at that place, and as many supposed that this sect brought them 
to the country with them, they were locally termed u Mormon lice.'' 
In his second report, page 284, Dr. Fitch states that Mr. William 
Patten, of Sandwich, Dekalb County, 111., informed him that the 
chinch bug first appeared in that locality iu 1850. Mr. Patten, the 
father of Trof. Simon Patten, now of the University of Pennsylvania, 
and the writer's father settled in the immediate vicinity of Sandwich, 
111., in 1852. This was ten years after the Pottawattamie chief, Shab- 
bona, and his tribe had migrated to Kansas or Nebraska, I do not 
remember which, but do recall that it was about this time that the 
prairie fires ceased to occur over any wide areas, as the prairies were 
no longer fired annually by the Indians. The whole country was fast 
being occupied, and I well remember that the settlers would decide 
upon a certain date on which they would set fire to the wild grass — in 
late autumn — so that all could be prepared. I may also state that 
there were very few timothy meadows at that time, as the wild grass 
afforded an abundance of hay, and not until years after did cultivated 
grasses come into general use. The writer also knows from personal 
experience and observation that with the decrease in prairie fires there 
came an increasing abundance of chinch bugs, which attacked the 
wheat fields of the farmer, f This was in a country where there was 
comparatively little timber, the only forests, if such they could be 
called, being along the streams of water. I am confident that the 
chinch bug did not suddenly make its appearance in that section, but 
that with the increase of grain growing and the decrease of prairie 
fires its effects began to be more and more marked. Since then Prof. 
*Tke complete writings of Thomas Say, edited by Le Conte, Vol. T. p. 329. 
t Up to about 1862 these fields were largely of spring wheat, hut about that time 
there was a rapid decline in the growing of this grain in northern Illinois. It seems 
possible that spring wheat might bo more liable to attack from chinch bugs than 
fall wheat, as the former is, at the time when chinch bugs seek out their breeding 
grounds, more tender and inviting than the latter. Mr. Walter Young, writing me 
from Galesville, Wis., states that his spring wheat was totally destroyed in lSMT, 
though there had been none sown for ten years previous on the premises, and while 
the chinch bug does not ordinarily do much injury, just as soon as spring wheat is 
sown they return, as it were, and destroy it. 
If spring wheat is so attractive to chinch bugs in spring as this would indicate, 
might it not be used for baits instead of millet, as is advised further on. in order to 
draw oil' the females in spring when seeking localities for oviposit .on I 
