1846.] Insects Injurious to Vegetation. 263* 



have been more unfortunate in his selection of a new one — the 

 name wheat-fly having been at least fourteen years previously ap- 

 propriated to a different insect, by Messrs. Loudon, Gorrie, Shir- 

 reff', and several other writers in the British periodicals; having 

 been used by the compilers of popular treatises on insects, one of 

 which, republished in this country, has been for several years past 

 circulating in almost every school district of this state (Harper^ s 

 Family and School Library, Insects, voL ii., p. 226-228); and 

 having, moreover, been adopted for the same insect in this coun- 

 try, to omit names of less note, by Dr. Harris, in his Report — a 

 work so superior to any similar treatise that has ever appeared, 

 and embodying such a large amount of most valuable information 

 upon the injurious insects of this country, that it must long remain 

 a standard authority upon all matters of this kind.* With such 

 wide currency to the name wheat-fly, what must community think 

 the extent of the reading of that man to be, who adventures to 

 proclaim that this name belongs to the Cecidomyia destructor, not 

 to the Cecidomyia tritici! It could scarcely excite more surprise 

 if he was to inform us that his orthography of the specific name 

 tritica was correct, and that we were wrong in wa'iting it tritici. 

 Mr. B.'s successor in the editorial chair of the Genesee Farmer, 



* We may here state some additional reasons which induced us in our for- 

 mer essay, to adopt the name " wheat-fly" in preference to that of " wheat- 

 midge," the name by which the C. tritici has been designated by Mr. Curtis 

 and some other recent writers. 



1. The insect itself, is, next after the wholly inappropriate name of "wee- 

 vil," most commonly called " the fly," we believe, in all those districts where 

 it is most abundant and has been longest known. It is never called "the 

 midge." Why, then, should we speak one common name, and write another; 

 or have in print as the common name, what we well know is not the common 

 name. 



2. No other insect in the world has a trivial name better established than 

 the Hessian fly. Both it and the C. tritici will undoubtedly continue to be 

 common insects in this country, and very frequently spoken of. If one is 

 called the Hessian JJy, and the other the wheai-midge, every person not well 

 acquainted with this subject, will imbibe the idea that they are very different 

 insects, their names being so dissimilar; whereas, they are most closely allied 

 to each other. 



3. It has often been remarked as a great desideratum, that the technical 

 and common names of species in natural history, should correspond with each 



