YII 
GENERAL RECORD FOR 1891 AND 1892. 
The economic entomology of the years 1891 and 1892 has 
presented in Illinois scarcely a single notable feature, all crops 
having been, on the whole, unusually free from insect injury, 
and no very serious danger threatening at any time. 
The most interesting item of our record was the attack on 
young corn made in May and June, 1891, throughout the 
greater part of the State, from extreme Northern Illinois to Bunker 
Hill, but especially in the central and southern counties, bv a 
small black jumping flea-beetle, Chsetocnema pulicaria, pre¬ 
viously wholly insignificant as a corn insect. From five to ten 
or more of these beetles might sometimes be found on a single 
blade of young corn not more than five or six inches high, and 
the damage done was often so great as to give a yellow look 
to the entire field, due to the deadening of the terminal part of 
the leaf beyond the spots affected by the microscopic gnawing of 
these beetles. The injury was magnified by the cold weather of 
the season, during which the corn made very little growth; and 
it practically vanished with the advent of good growing weather. 
The chinch bug, which in 1889 and 1890 had very nearly dis¬ 
appeared as an important factor in the agriculture of this State, 
has begun during the two years just passed again to take the 
upward turn. 
The almost uniformly high temperature of the spring and sum¬ 
mer of 1890 and 1891 in northern and in southern Central Illi¬ 
nois, combined with light rainfall, amounting in some counties 
to little less than continuous drouth, favored its development 
unusually in these sections. 
South of Central Illinois, the region affected in 1891 was a 
belt of counties extending from about the line of the Ohio & 
Mississippi Railroad northward to the latitude of Springfield, 
and local injury seemed likely for some distance north of this. 
In the north, the infested district was a roughly triangular area 
in the northeastern corner of the State, of which Stephenson 
county marks the western angle and Kankakee county the 
southern. The distribution of injury within these limits was, of 
course, extremely variable, as is shown by the following’ exam¬ 
ples of field notes and correspondence for 1891; first for Southern 
Illinois, and then for the northern part of the State. 
