THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 85 



A. Fitch (Hessian Fly, p. 19) complains that he was unable to find in 

 either of the largest libraries of the State of New York the vol. v. of those 

 Memoirs, and has for the same reason not seen vol. iv. The series in the 

 Harvard Library was procured by the care of Th. W. Harris, but vol. iii. 

 is wanting, as it could not be procured by the Society. Mr. Harris' cor- 

 respondence is afiixed to the first volume, and shows how difhcult it was 

 in 1845 ^^ S^^ those Memoirs. 



The opinion given by Mr. R. Peters concerning the origin of the name 

 Hessian Fly is corroborated by Mr. Bond's relation upon another insect 

 (Encycl. Britan. p. 494). " This insect," says he, " is called in Maryland 

 the Revolution Fly, by the friends of the British Government; but from 

 all I can learn it is not the same insect which originated on Long Island 

 and is called the Hessian Fly (by way of opprobium) by those who 

 favored the Revolution." Prof. Packard objects, p. 236, that the words, 

 " before the arrival of the troops," in quoting Mr. Mitchell's statement — it 

 (the H. Fly) was first discovered in the year 1776 — are my own and not 

 Mr. Mitchell's. If Prof Packard had compared the Enc. Brit., — he states 

 that he had not seen it — he would have scarcely objected to my statement. 

 The whole passage by Mitchell is interesting to be quoted in full : " As it 

 (H. Fly) appeared ai>o?i^ the time that the Hessian troops arrived, an 

 opinion had gone abroad that they brought it along with them ; but the 

 Doctor (Mr. jSIitchell) was of opinion that it is a native animal, nourished 

 by some indigenous plant, but which then, for the first time, came among 

 the wheat and found it proper food." 



As it seems that the article, " Hessian Fly," in the Encycl. Britan., is 

 not so well known as it merits to be, I have taken particular care to find 

 out the editions in which it is contained. It appears first in the third 

 edition, vol. viii., p. 489-495, in 1797, and exactly the same in Dobson's 

 first edition, 1798, vol.' viii., p. 489-495.* The only copy of the third 

 edition I was able to find belongs to the Essex Institute in Salem, Mass. 

 The fourth edition is rather rare ; I have seen no copy, but Prof. W. B. 

 Nichols has kindly compared a copy in the Brit. Museum ; the title, Hes- 

 sian Fly, in vol. x., 18 10, is exactly identical with the third edition, and 

 also with the fifth edition, 181 7. 



I was not able to see the sixth edition. In the seventh and eighth the 

 article Hessian Fly is wanting, but in the ninth, 1880, appears a new one 



This edition is always quoted by me. 



