LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 
Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, 
Office of State Entomologist. 
Normal, Illinois, December 30, 1883. 
Hon. J. B. Scott, President of the State Board of Agriculture: 
Dear Sir : I have the honor to present herewith my first report 
as State Entomologist of Illinois, the' twelfth in number of the 
series from this office. Although the period covered by this report 
r is ostensibly the entire year 1882, I deem* it proper to say that it 
really relates only to the latter half of the year—my appointment 
j to the office dating July 3. Although, as Director of the State La¬ 
boratory of Natural History, my attention had been more or less 
f engaged for several years by questions relating to economic en¬ 
tomology, yet the nature of my duties was such as to forbid my 
following the subject closely until I was made responsible for the 
work. As a consequence of the brief period of time actually covered 
by this report, much of the matter contained in it is necessarily of 
a somewhat fragmentary character, since it has been impossible to 
follow any species of insect through more than half the year. 
I am happy to say that insect injuries to the crops, both of the 
farm and of the garden, were this year considerably below the av¬ 
erage. While the cliinch-bug hibernated in extraordinary numbers, 
and threatened serious injury early in the season, the cool and wet 
weather occurring at the usual time of oviposition so far checked 
its development, that the damage done was finally trivial, and there 
is now a strong probability that we shall be practically unmolested 
by this most grievous pest during the coming year.' Early in spring 
the army-worm appeared in overwhelming numbers in grass lands, 
in some parts of Southern Illinois, and a later brood occurred in 
June here and there in the central part of State,—but their para¬ 
sites promptly reduced them to subjection, and no very serious in¬ 
jury was inflicted. 
The season was, however, rather favorable to the development of 
plant lice, and several species of these always-threatening insects 
became locally destructive. The grain plant louse was heard of in 
oats fields; the corn plant louse was very widely and generally dis¬ 
tributed in corn, and probably contributed appreciably to the short 
—H 
