140 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
show the intimate connection between agriculture 
and natural history, it would be found in the 
circumstances which attended the supposed ap- 
pearance of the Hessian fly in this country; thus 
mentioned by Messrs. Kirby and Spence :—*“ In 
1788, an alarm was 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. The privy council sat day 
after day, anxiously debating what measures should 
be adopted to ward off the danger of a calamity, 
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 out-ports, respecting the examination of 
cargoes: despatches were written to the ambassadors 
in France, Austria, 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 docu- 
ments collected from all quarters, fill upwards of 
two hundred octavo pages. Fortunately, at that time, 
England contained one illustrious naturalist, to whom 
the privy council had the wisdom to apply; and it 
was by Sir Joseph Banks’s entomological knowledge, 
and through his suggestions, that they were at length 
enabled to form some kind of judgment on the 
subject. This judgment was, after all, however, 
very imperfect. As Sir Joseph had never seen the 
Hessian fly, nor was it described in any entomo- 
logical system, he called for facts respecting its 
