262* Insects Injurious to Vegetation. [Oct., 



history, would suspect this single species of being designated by 

 such a profusion of terms. Who, on reading the page referred 

 to, of the Patent Office Report, (and it is a correct transcript of 

 the very words which are in popular use,) but would receive its 

 statements as conclusive evidence that we had in eastern New 

 York at least four or five kinds of destructive insects preying 

 upon our wheat crops. Such mistakes are the inevitable results 

 of a diversity of names. So important therefore do we deem this 

 topic, that we are induced to assign to it a distinct head. 



It is very fortunate that no confusion of the kind just alluded 

 to, has ever existed with reference to the species under considera- 

 tion. Its popular name, Hessian fly, was first bestowed upon it 

 by Colonel Morgan, soon after its appearance on Long Island. 

 Some two or three of the earliest writers allude to it by the 

 names of Hessian bug, and Hessian insect, but these designations 

 were speedily dropped, and Hessian fly became universally the 

 only name by which it was definitely distinguished, not only in 

 this country, but in all parts of the world where the English lan- 

 guage was spoken. Even when it was by every one deemed to 

 be a native insect, and the epithet Hessian was therefore remarked 

 by different writers as most inappropriate, still it was in such uni- 

 versal use, that no one had the presumption to propose a different 

 name. Certainly, then, at the present day, when scarcely a doubt 

 can be entertained but that it is a Hessian species, any attempt to 

 foist upon it a new popular name, must prove signally unsuc- 

 cessful. 



But, Mr. M. B. Bateham, editor of the Genesee Farmer in 1843, 

 and subsequently of the Ohio Cultivator, bestows upon this spe- 

 cies the name of " wheat-fly."* If love of novelty, or fondness 

 for innovation, prompted this gentleman to discard a name which 

 all the rest of the world had concurred in, he could not possibly 



* We have been informed, by different persons, who are or have been resi- 

 dents of western New York and Ohio, that in familiar conversation in those 

 districts, the species under consideration is alluded to simply as " the fly." If 

 any epithet is prefixed to this, it is always the word " Hessian; " they recol- 

 lect in no instance to have heard it called the "wheat-fly." 



