PANIC ABOUT THE HESSIAN FLY. 141 
nature, propagation, and economy, which could be 
had only from America. These were obtained as 
speedily as possible, and consisted of numerous 
letters from individuals, essays from magazines, the 
reports of the British minister there, &c. One would 
have supposed, that, from these statements, many 
of them drawn up by farmers who had lost entire 
crops by the insect, which they professed to have 
examined in every stage, the requisite information 
might have been acquired. So far, however, was 
this from being the case, that many of the writers 
seemed ignorant whether the insect were a moth, a 
fly, or what they term a bug. And though, from the 
concurrent testimony of several persons, its being a 
two-winged fly seemed pretty accurately ascertained, 
no intelligible description was given, from which any 
naturalist could infer to what genus it belonged, or 
whether it was a known or an unknown species. 
With regard to the history of its propagation 
and economy, the statements were so various and 
contradictory, that, though he had such a mass of 
materials before him, Sir Joseph Banks was unable 
to reach any satisfactory conclusion.” (Introduction 
to Entomology, vol.i. p.51.) Nothing, as our authors 
justly observe, can more incontrovertibly demon- 
strate the importance of entomology, as a science, 
than this fact. Those observations, to which thou- 
sands of unscientific sufferers proved themselves 
incompetent, would have been readily made by one 
entomologist well versed in his science. He would 
at once have determined the order and genus of his 
insect; and in a twelvemonth, at furthest, he would 
