LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 
Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, 
» Office of State Entomologist, 
t Normal, III., December SO, 1888. 
| 
To his Excellency, John M. Hamilton, Governor of the State of Illinois: 
Sir : I have the honor to transmit herewith my second 
report as State Entomologist of Illinois, covering our operations for 
the year 1888. An appendix, consisting of a complete index to 
the twelve preceding reports of the office, and a full glossary of the 
technical terms used in them, was all ready for publication with 
this report, but so far passed the limit of the number of pages al¬ 
lowed me by the State Board of Agriculture, that it is necessarily 
withheld. 
NOTES of the year. 
In the northern part of the State, few serious insect injuries to 
crops have come under our observation, although the com root- 
worm, the corn plant-louse, and the apple aphis, have been numer¬ 
ous and destructive rather beyond the average; but the year has 
been marked by some devastating outbreaks of injurious insects to 
the southward. 
The Hessian fly ravaged the wheat fields of Southern Illinois, greatly 
diminishing the yield and the quality of that grain over large areas, 
and completely destroying many fields, so that they were either 
plowed up and devoted to other crops in spring, or left without 
harvesting in midsummer. Owing to the abundance of their para¬ 
sites, and the long-continued drouth of the later summer, a very 
large percentage of these insects were destroyed, and the danger of 
widespread general injury another year was greatly lessened; never¬ 
theless the “fly” has done considerable local injury this fall in the 
Wabash Valley. The whole tenor of our observations of this insect, 
made during the harvest and the two months following, was to the 
j effect that it passes this season in the stubble, in the field, where 
it might be easily destroyed by general and concerted action. 
The two other capital insect enemies of Western agriculture, the 
chinch bug and the army w r orm, have been practically out of the 
! field throughout the season, the former having been so far reduced 
\ ln numbers by its parasites, and the latter by the extraordinarily 
wet spring of the year previous, that neither has made any appear¬ 
ance in force. The chinch-bug is not . far below the danger line, 
