258 [Senate 



anterioi' even to the date when the Hessian fly was first observed in 

 America. 



In 1795, as we are informed by Mr. Marsham, in a paper read be- 

 fore the Linnsean Society, London, and published in their Transac- 

 tions, vol. iii. p. 142, towards the end of July, Mr. Long had observed 

 an insect that threatened to do much mischief to the wheat crops, 

 attacking one or more of the grains in an ear, and causing the chaff 

 of these grains to become yellow or ripe, whilst the remainder of the 

 head w^as still green. Mr. Marsham, on opening the chaff of these 

 grains, found an orange-colored powder, and in many of them one or 

 two very minute yellowish-white or deep yellow larvae, the grain it- 

 self appearing to be a little shrunk. Mr. Markwick, of Sussex, also 

 observed the same larvae in his wheat, the forepart of August, but 

 was confident they had done no injury to it. The same larvse were 

 also noticed by Mr. Kirby, this year, in Suffolk. 



In a subsequent paper from Mr. Marsham {Trans. Lin. Soc. vol. 

 iv. p. 224), we are informed that Mr. Markwick, July 12, 1797, saw 

 the flies themselves, at rest upon the heads of the wheat, and also a 

 few of the larvse within the flowers ; and that awhile later in the sea- 

 son the fly appeared reduced in numbers, whilst the larvae had be- 

 come much more abundant. From heads of the wheat enclosed in a 

 flowerpot, he reared the fly, and also its parasite ; the fly thus ob- 

 tained having " spotted wings,'? a fact which we shall revert to here- 

 after. 



Following this account is an excellent article (p. 230) by the Rev. 

 William Kirby, who has since become so well known by his various 

 writings upon entomology. Mr. Kirby here gives a scientific de- 

 scription of the wheat-fly, bestowing upon it the specific name triticiy 

 by which it has been definitely distinguished by all subsequent wri- 

 ters, and correctly referring it to the genus Tipula of Linnaeus, a genus 

 which, in consequence of the vast number of species afterwards 

 discovered to be comprised under it, naturalists have since found it 

 necessary to subdivide ; and the species in question at this day falls 

 within that group to which the name Cecidomyia was given by La- 

 treille — an arrangement concurred in by Mr. Kirby himself in his 

 communication in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, vol. i. p. 

 227 ^ and which I note thus particularly, as by most writers in our 



