€\)t €MiMm Entomologist. 



VOL. XVII. LONDON, ONT., MAY, 1885. No. 5 



FURTHER MATERIAL CONCERNING THE HESSIAN FLY. 



COLLECTED BY DR. H. A. HAGEN, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



The third report of the U. S. Entomological Commission, Washington, 

 18S3, contains an excellent paper on the Hessian Fly, by Prof. A. S. 

 Packard, p. 195-248, and in the appendix, p. 3-49, the translation of Ger- 

 man papers by Loew, Wagner, Cohn, Koeppen, formerly not known by 

 the Professor; also a reprint of my paper in the Can. Ent., Oct., 1880, 

 " The Hessian Fly not imported from Europe." The Professor accepts 

 now (p. 238) : That the Hessian Fly had appeared in the Eastern U. S. 

 before the Revolutionary War, and that it could not have been introduced 

 by the Hessians. He was not able to find in the files of the Pennsylvania 

 Mercury and Philadelphia Packet some reference to the earlier occurrence 

 of the H. Fly (App. p. 3), 



I have tried since my paper was published to make further investiga- 

 tions in the old American literature. Some startling discoveries will pro- 

 bably necessitate the modification of some of the conclusions of the 

 Professor. But I have frankly to state that I found it very hard to in- 

 vestigate the older literature. The publications treating agriculturally are 

 rare, and at least in the libraries to which I have access, mostly incom- 

 plete. Mr. A. Fitch made the same complaint forty years ago. He was 

 not able to compare some very important papers, though his publications 

 show clearly that perhaps no one has tried to bring together the literature 

 with a similar care. 



The Occurrence of the Hessian Fly in North America before the 



Revolution. 



The American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia appointed, in 

 1 791, a committee for the purpose of collecting, and communicating to 

 the Society, materials for the natural history of the insect called Hessian 

 Fly, as also information of the best means of preventing or destroying the 

 insect, and whatever else relating to the same might be interesting to 

 agriculture. 



