GENERAL RECORD FOR 1889 AND 1890. 
The most noteworthy events of the entomological record for 
the years 1889 and 1890 are the almost complete disappear¬ 
ance" of the worst outbreak of the chinch bug in our history, the 
*apid, enormous, and very destructive development of the grain 
1 /Ouse, —an insect hitherto scarcely known to our agricultural 
jopulation,—and the discovery in Illinois of a European fruit 
jest, the fruit bark beetle, which has already done considera- 
ible injury to stone fruits here, and will probably do much more 
inless promptly dealt with. 
In my last Report, I remarked concerning the chinch bug, 
page 1,) that “evidences of the disappearance of this outbreak 
are now beginning to accumulate;’' and (page 2) “The recent 
vide-spread appearance of three destructive contagious diseases 
af the chinch bug, and a consequent diminution of its numbers, 
uakes it seem at last unlikelv that anv extraordinary loss will 
ollow next year in the territory which has been so long in- 
ested.’' Later that autumn the vast destruction of chinch bugs 
ay disease was unmistakable, and the events of the next season 
oil owed in accordance with the expectations above expressed, 
tfter a brief period of alarm in spring, in here and there a 
ocality, the number of chinch bugs diminished very rapidly, 
md by the end of the summer scarcely one could be found in 
listricts where they had practically overrun the country a< little 
ess than a year before. The crops of the infested region in 
L889 were, in fact, the best known there for many years. The 
summer of 1890 has been very dry, however, and this fall there 
ias again been seen in some parts of Clinton, Washington, St. 
Jlair, Jersey, Greene, Pike, and Montgomery counties, evidence 
}f possible trouble by the chinch bug in the near future*. Some 
small damage was also done in Northern Illinois, if I may judge 
tom a single report each of injury from Stephenson and Lee. 
the possible economic use of the spontaneous diseases of this 
* From the Held notes of an assistant, sent on an entomological trip the latter part of 
October, 1890, it appears that chinch bugs were present near Carlyle, Clinton county, in 
.onsiderable numbers late in the season, some damage to corn having been reported. Ai 
he date of this visit, October 28, a few were found in corn fields and a few were seen in 
growing rye, but more under rails and about corn shocks. At Nashville, In Washington 
sounty, chinch bugs Were not commonly noticed until after wheat harvest, when a little 
lamage to corn by them was reported in the neighborhood of the town. Two hours’ search 
n corn fields yielded about one hundred bugs, found behind the sheaths of the greener 
'talks. At Jerseyville a few had been noticed after harvest, and at Roodhouse and Griggs- 
'ille they were said to have been quite numerous, although it was not certain that they had 
lone any material damage. 
