21 
matter, and nothing else, even when examined by the microscope. 
Even of those that migrated to corn fields a few weeks ago in 
such numbers as to covfr the lower half of the corn stalks, very 
few are to be found remaining alive; but the .ground around the 
base of the corn hills is almost literally covered with their moul¬ 
dering, decomposed dead bodies. This matter is so common as to 
be observed and often spoken of by farmers. They are dead 
everywhere, not lying on the ground alone, but sticking to the 
blades and stalks of corn in great numbers, in ail stages of their 
development, larva, pupa, and imago.” It seems likely from his 
whole account that both Sporotrichum and Entomophthora were 
present among these chinch-bugs, but his description is too indefi¬ 
nite to enable one to say with any certainty. 
Shimer’s entomological contemporaries of that day, Walsh of 
Illinois and Riley of Missouri, failed to suspect fungous infection 
as a cause of these phenomena, ridiculed the idea of a chinch-bug 
disease, and characterized his reasoning as “pure assumption, 
speculation,” etc. It was not until ten years afterwards that 
Dr. Cyrus Thomas, then State Entomologist of Illinois, sug¬ 
gested the idea of a fungous dkease as an exph nation of the 
occurrences reported by Shimer. “Although the plague among the 
bugs,” he says, “appears to be somewhat extraordinary, yet it is in 
accordance with facts ascertained in reference to other insects, and 
as Dr. Shimer is both a competent and reliable authority, we ac¬ 
cept his statement as correct, and believe with him that it was 
owing as the originating cause to the damp season. But we are 
inclined to believe that the moisture gave rise to a minute fungus 
as the direct cause of the death of the chinches.”! 
The first definite suggestion among us of the possibility of the 
economic use of fungous insect disease was made by the well- 
known coleopterist, Dr. J. L. LeConte, in 1873, when, in a pub¬ 
lic address,^ hs recommended “careful study of epidemic diseases 
of insects, especially those of a fungoid nature, and experiments 
on the most effective meins of introducing and communicating 
such diseases at pleasure.” Referring in 1880 to this earlier 
recommendation, he says that he had in mind the work of a 
“well-trained mycologist, skilled in the recognition of microscopic 
forms, acquainted with ferments and their methods of growth, 
familiar with the protean forms of zymosis, so far as they have 
been traced to organic germs—in few words, a first-class scientific 
student, who, after careful investigation of the fungus-killed 
insects brought to him by the ‘practical’ entomologists, shall in¬ 
form the latter of the nature of the fungi, whether they are 
transmissable or fixed in structure, how they can most advan¬ 
tageously be cultivated, and in what vehicle they can best be 
distributed when needed.”§ 
* Am. Ent. Vol. I„ p. 175. 
t Bull. 5 U. S. Ent. Comm. 
t Hints for the Promotion of Economic Entomology. Proc. A. A. A. S., 1873, Pt. 2, p. 22. 
§ Can. Ent. Vol. XII., p. 127. 
