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 



