MAGGOTS. 413 



at the rate of fifteen or twenty miles round ; and in 1789 it 

 had advanced two hundred miles from its original station 

 in Long Island. Other accormts state that it did not travel 

 more than seven miles annually, and did little serious 

 damage before 1788. Their numbers seem almost incredible. 

 The houses in the infested districts swarmed with them to 

 so great a degree, that every vessel was filled with them ; 

 five hundred were actually counted on a glass tumbler 

 which had been set down for a few minutes with a little 

 beer in it. They were observed crossing the Delaware 

 river like a cloud; and even mountains do not seem to 

 interrupt their progress.* We can well understand, there- 

 fore, that so formidable a ravager should have caused a 

 very great alarm ; and even our own government was in 

 fear lest the insect should be imported. The privy council , 

 indeed, sat day after day in deep consultation what mea- 

 sures should be adopted to ward oif the danger of a calamity 

 more to be dreaded, as they well knew, than the plague or the 

 pestilence. Expresses were sent off in all directions to the 

 officers of the customs at the different outports respecting 

 the examination of cargoes, — despatches were written to 

 the ambassadors in France, Austria, Prussia, and America, 

 to gain information, — and so important altogether was the 

 business deemed, that the minutes of council, and the 

 documents collected from all quarters, fill upwards of two 

 hundred pages. f 



As in the case of the English wheat-fly, the American 

 Hessian-fly has a formidable enemy in a minute four- 

 winged fly (Cerapkron destructor^ Sat), which deposits 

 its eggs in the larvae. Were it not for the Ceraphron, 

 indeed, Mr. Say is of opinion that the crops of wheat 

 would be totally annihilated in the districts where the 

 Hessian-fly prevails. J 



Those who have, from popular associations been ac- 

 customed to look with disgust at the little white larvae 



* Kirby and Spence, vol. i. p. 172. 

 t Young, Annals of Agric, vol. xi. 

 X Journ. of Acad. Pliiladelph. ut supra. 



