LOSSES CAUSED BY CHINCH HUGS. 21) 
here the migrations are as likely to be to the timothy meadows as to 
the fields of com, where both are equally within reach. Besides, 
everything indicates that a very large proportion of the adults may 
hibernate in these meadows, even making their way thereto in the 
autumn. 
LOSSES CAUSED BY CHINCH BUGS. 
It would appear that this pest first made its presence known by its 
ravages in tbe wheat fields of the Xorth Carolina farmers; for we are 
told that " in 1785 the fields in this State were so overrun with them as 
to threaten a total destruction of the grain. And, at length the crops 
were so destroyed in some districts that farmers were obliged to abandon 
the sowing of wheat. It was four or five years that they continued so 
numerous at this time."* 
In the year 1809, as stated by Mr. J. W. Jefferys,t the chinch bug 
again became destructive in Xorth Carolina to such an extent that in 
Orange County farmers were obliged to suspend the sowing of wheat 
for two years. In 1839 f the pest again became destructive in the 
Caroliuas and in Virginia, where the bugs migrated from the wheat 
fields at harvest to the corn, and in 1840 there was a similar outbreak 
and both wheat and corn were seriously injured. In all of these cases, 
however, there is no recorded estimate of the actual financial losses 
resulting from the attacks of the chinch bug. According to Le Baron, 
during the years from 1815 to 1850 the insect ravaged over Illinois and 
portions of Indiana and Wisconsin, and in 1854 and 1855 it again 
worked serious injury in northern Illinois. The writers earliest recol- 
lection of the chinch bug and its ravages in the grain fields of the 
settlers on the prairies dates from this last outbreak. Mr. B. D. W alsh 
estimated the loss to the farmers of Illinois in 1850 at -94.000,000, or 
$4.70 to every man, woman, and child living in the State. The earlier 
outbreaks, though the occasion of smaller money loss, were even more 
disastrous; for the destruction of the grain crops in those pioneer days 
not only took away all cash profits, but also deprived the early settlers 
of their very living, and in some cases reduced them to starvation. 
In 1863, 1864, and 1865 the insect was again destructive in Illinois 
and other Western States, its ravages being especially severe m 1864, 
when we have another attempt at computation of the financial l<>s^. 
Dr. Henry Shimer, of Mount Carroll, 111., who had carefully studied 
the chinch bug, estimated that k - three fourths of the wheat ami one 
half of the corn crop were destroyed by the pest throughout many 
extensive districts, comprising almost the entire northwest." In criti- 
cising the doctor regarding another point, Messrs. Walsh and Riley, in 
The American Entomologist (Vol. 1, p. 107. L869 . admit that the 
Webster on Pestilence, Vol. I,p.279. Not seen. Quoted from Pitch. 
t Albany Cultivator, first series. Vol. VI, p. 201. 
. The Cultivator, Vol. VI, i>. LOS. 
