APPENDIX. 147 



been observed on the beach washed up by the tide, it has been 

 a received opinion among the farmers that they are not natives 

 of this country, but come across the ocean, and observations 

 this year greatly corroborate the idea. Fishermen upon the 

 eastern coast declare that they actually saw them arrive in 

 cloud-like flights ; and from the testimony of many, it seems to 

 be an indisputable fact, that they first made their appearance 

 on the eastern coast; and moreover, that on their being first 

 observed, they lay upon and near the cliffs so thick and so lan- 

 guid that they might have been collected into heaps, lying, it is 

 said, in some places two inches thick. From thence they pro- 

 ceeded into the country, and even at the distance of three or 

 four miles from the coast, they were seen in multitudes, resem- 

 bling swarms of bees. About ten days after the appearance of 

 the flies, the young caterpillars were first observed on the under 

 side of the leaves of the turnip, and in seven or eight days more 

 the entire plants, except the stronger fibres, were eaten up. 

 A border under the hedge was regularly spared until the body 

 of the inclosure was finished ; but this done, the border was 

 soon stripped, and the gateway, and even the roads have been 

 seen covered with caterpillars, travelling in quest of a fresh sup- 

 ply of turnips ; for the grasses, and indeed every plant, except 

 the turnip and the charlock (Sinapis arvensis), they entirely 

 neglect, and even die at their roots, without attempting to feed 

 upon them. This destruction has not been confined within a 

 few miles of the eastern coast, but has reached more or less 

 into the very centre of the county. The mischief, however, in 

 the western parts of Norfolk, and even on the north coast, has 

 been less general, but I am afraid it may be said, with a great 

 deal of truth, that one half of the turnips in the county have 

 been cut off by this voracious animal. 



A circumstance so discouraging to industry and injurious to 

 the public at large, will, I flatter myself, be thought a sufficient 

 apology for troubling you with a relation of it, and for my tak- 

 ing the liberty of sending you a male and female fly, also one of 

 the animals in its caterpillar, and one which is in its chrysalis 

 state, for your inspection, hoping that the public may become 



