248 Insects Injurious to Vegetation. [Oct., 



rick and Dana. Testimony from such a source needs no com- 

 ment. 



Finally, the year previous to that in which Mr. Dana made the 

 above examination, it appears that the wheat crops in some parts 

 of Germany, were seriously injured by an insect w'hich was gen- 

 erally regarded as the Hessian fly. M. Kollar, of Vienna, in his 

 treatise on injurious insects, (London, 1840, p. 119,) relates that 

 in the autumn of 1843, complaints were made that the wheat on 

 the estates of his imperial highness, the Archduke Charles, at Al- 

 tenburg, in Hungary, had been considerably injured by an un- 

 known insect, of which the following account was forwarded to 

 the archducal office. " Till the end of May the wheat was in 

 excellent condition, but about the commencement of June, the 

 ears began to hang down, and the stem to bend, and in a few 

 days patches appeared in different parts of the fields which were of 

 rather poorer soil than the others, with the plants entangled and 



matted together, as though lodged by heavy rains More 



than two-thirds of the straw was lodged in less than a week; and 

 the heavy rains which fell in the latter half of June, so fully com- 

 pleted the work of destruction, that the wheat fields looked as if 

 herds of cattle had gone over them. The cause of this damage 

 was sought for, and we soon discovered at the crown of the root 

 of each of the wheat plants, or at the first joint, within the sheath 

 of the leaf, whole clusters of pupee of an unknown insect. Those 

 plants, the roots of which had been attacked, died off"; and the 

 spot to which the insects had fastened themselves on the still soft 

 straw within the sheath of the leaf, was found to be brown, with- 

 ered, and tough, yet without any apparent wound. The straw 

 which had become lodged, produced small ears, with few and im- 

 perfect grains, which ripened with difficulty, and the straw was 

 twisted, and of a very inferior quality." 



Nearly a hundred miles south-west of Saxe-Altenburgh, a simi- 

 lar account is simultaneously given by Baron Von Meninger, ag- 

 ricultural director of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg. According to 

 his report, " In the fields of Weikendorf, and other neighboring 



