DIPTERA. 453 



its common name from a supposition that it was brought to 

 this country, in some straw, by the Hessian troops luuler the 

 comnunid of Sir William Howe in the war of the Revolution.* 

 This supposition, however, has been thought to be erroneous, 

 because the early enquiries made to discover the Hessian fly 

 in Germany were unsuccessful; and, in consequence thereof. 

 Sir Joseph Banks, in his report to the British Government, in 

 1789, stated that " no such insect could be found to exist in 

 Germany or any other part of Europe." f It appears, how- 

 ever, that the same insect, or one exactly like it in habits, had 

 been long known in the vicinity of Geneva; an account of it 

 may be found in Duhamel's " Practical Treatise of Husband- 

 ry," | and in a communication! made to the Duke of Dorset, 

 in 1788, by the Royal Society of Agriculture of France. In 

 the year 1833 the wheat in Austria and in Hungary was con- 

 siderably injured by an insect of the same kind, supposed to 

 be the Hessian fly by the Baron K611ar.§ Moreover, Mr. E. 

 C. Herrick, of New Haven, Connecticut, has published an 

 account || of the discovery of the true Hessian fly, by Mr. 

 James D. Dana, in Minorca, near Toulon in France, and in 

 the vicinity of Naples, in the year 1834. Nothing has yet 

 been found relative to the existence of the Hessian fly in 

 America before the Revolution. It \vas first observed in the 

 year 1776, in the neighborhood of Sir William Howe's debark- 

 ation on Staten Island, and at Flat Bush, on the west end of 

 Long Island. Having multiplied in these places, the insects 

 gradually spread over the southern parts of New York and 

 Connecticut, and continued to proceed inland at the rate of 

 fifteen or twenty miles a year. They reached Saratoga, two 

 hundred miles from their original station, in 1789. Dr. Chap- 

 man says, that they were found west of the Alleghany moun- 



» Dobson's " EncyclopaDclia." Vol. VIII., p. 491. 



t "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and Dobson's "Encyclopjedia." Vol. VIII., 

 article Hessian Fly. 



X p. 90. 4to. Lond. 1759. See also his " Elements of Agriculture," Vol. 

 I., p. 269. 8vo. Lond. 1664. 



§ "Treatise," pp. 118, 119. 



II Silliinaii's "American Journal of Science," Vol. XLI., p. 153. 



