2 FARMERS’ BULLETIN 640. 
our wheat fields, yet farmers are, in many cases, still at a loss regard- 
ing the best methods of warding off its devastation. 
EARLY HISTORY IN AMERICA. 
The common name, ‘‘ Hessian fly,’’ was long ago bestowed upon this 
insect by Americans, because of its having committed some depreda- 
tions on Long Island, New York, in 1779, in the vicinity of Lord 
Howe’s old encampment of three years before. The Hessian merce- 
naries who constituted a part of this army were much despised, both 
at home and in America, and, on the supposition that these soldiers 
had brought the pest with them from their native country in the 
straw used for their bedding while en route, it was given the obnox- 
Fig. 2.—The Hessian fly: Adult male. Much enlarged. (Original.) 
ious name of ‘‘Hessian fly.”’, Whether or not this theory of its intro- 
duction was well founded can never be either substantiated or dis- 
proven, and all that can now be said is, that the pest was imported, 
probably from some trans-Atlantic country and some time during 
the latter half of the eighteenth century. As a matter of interest, it 
may be stated that, in some quarters, the more ignorant Tory element 
of those days claimed that General Washington was responsible for 
this pest. It was not technically described until 1817. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE INSECT. 
The fly itself (fig. 1, female; fig. 2, male) is very small, being only 
about one-tenth of an inch long, the body of an obscure dark color, 
and the form much like that of a very small mosquito. The abdo- 
men of the female (fig. 1) is red, or yellowish when first hatched from 
