OBJFXTIONS ANSWERED. 51 



petent naturalist undertook to investigate its liistory, 

 and in a short paper in the Szcedish Tronsaclions^ 

 proved that Linne was not mistaken in referring it to 

 the former genus. 



The second instance of the insufficiency of popular 

 description is even more extraordinary. In 1788 an 

 alarm w as excited in this country by the probability of 

 importing, in cargoes of wheat from North America, 

 the insect known by the name of the Hessian fly, whose 

 dreadful ravages will be adverted to hereafter. How- 

 ever the insect tribes are in general despised, they had 

 on that occasion ample revenge. The privy council 

 sat day after day anxiously debating what measures 

 should be adopted to ward off the danger of a cala- 

 mity, more to be dreaded, as they well knew, than the 

 plague or pestilence. Expresses were sent off in all 

 directions to the officers of the customs at the different 

 outports respecting the examination of cargoes — di- 

 spatches written to the ambassadors in France, Au- 

 stria, Prussia, and America, to gain that information 

 of the want of which they were now so sensible : and 

 so important was the business deemed, that the minutes 

 of council and the documents collected from all quarters 

 fill upwards of two hundred octavo pages ''. Fortu- 

 nately England contained one illustrious naturalist, 

 the most authentic source of information on all sub- 

 jects Avhich connect Natural History with Agriculture 

 and the Arts, to whom the privy council had the wis- 

 dom to apply ; and it was by Sir Joseph Banks's ento- 

 mological knowledge, and through his suggestions, 



"^ Swartz in Kongl. Vet. Ac. Nya. band, ix, 40. Plate XXT M. Fig. 10, 



*" Yoims;'s Annals of JgriaiUure, xi. 406. 

 E 2 



