304 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
worms; they looked upon.it as a special instance of divine 
punishment; but as long as bodies were not buried deep in 
the ground, or were deposited in the vaults of churches, 
such things happened very frequently. These flies follow 
the coffins and hover about them, until, by the putrefaction 
and expansion of the bodies, the seams of the coffin are 
pressed open, when they enter the cracks, deposit their 
eggs, and soon after the maggots are hatched and ready for 
their depredations. Those, therefore, who wish to avoid 
being early devoured by worms must be interred, according 
to Masonic rule, in a grave six feet deep under ground, due 
east and west. 
Another insect of this order, and perhaps the most dis- 
tinguished in the archives of our Government, certainly the 
most celebrated in Congressional and editorial harangues, is 
The Hesstan-FLty (Cecidomyia destructor).—This insect, 
although incorrectly, yet very generally, was believed to 
have been brought to America in 1780, in vessels laden 
with grain, by the Hessian army that was rented to Great 
Britain during the Revolutionary War. But, as we have 
said, this was incorrect, as this insect was seen and known 
in Staten Island, and at Flatbush, Long Island, as early as 
1776. As early as 1788 the ravages of this insect had be- 
come so great throughout the fields of wheat, rye, and bar- 
ley, in many of the States, as to cause very considerable 
alarm, and to call for decisive action on the part of the dif- 
ferent Legislatures, as well as of Congress. Consultations 
were held as to the best means of averting an evil which 
threatened to be more terrible than pestilence. Messengers 
were dispatched to the different custom-houses in the Unit- 
ed States, for the purpose of examining every ship-load that 
arrived, to see that no more of these insects were brought 
ashore; and notices to the same effect were sent to all our 
embassadors in Europe. The debates in Congress, with the 
information that was collected in regard to this little insect, 
