A FoRKTGN Invasion of Kx(ii.ANn 2S7 



piitaiits hotly niaintuins tluit tlic Hessian llv, which 

 now abounds in |)arts of France, Austria, and 

 Russia, is a native of the Old World, and that its 

 first home coincided with that of our primitive 

 cereals, Southern Europe and Western Asia. An- 

 otlier scliool, anxious to make out the enemy an 

 American citizen, hj^hts hard for its beinj^ an 

 aboriginal inhabitant of the United States. Thus 

 much, at least, is certain, that at the present day 

 the "fly" is found in both hemispheres in too 

 great abundance, and that in America in particular 

 in certain disastrous years it has almost ruined 

 the entire wheat crop. I liave seen whole fields 

 upon fields there simplv pillaj^ed by its ravages. 

 The loss produced by tins insiqnilicant little crea- 

 ture, indeed, has in some seasons been measured 

 by millions of poimds sterling. 



If you go out into a barley-iield in England 

 where the Hessian fly has effected his entrance, 

 you will probably fmd a large number of plants of 

 barley, like tliat delineated in No. i, with the 

 stem bent down sliarply toward the ground at the 

 second joint. At lirst sight you might imagine 

 these stalks were merely broken by the wind or 

 fallen by their own weight ; but if you exa- 

 mine them closely in tlie neighbourliood of the 

 bend, wiiich occurs with singular unanimity in 

 all the affected plants at about the same point, 

 you will find inside tlie sheath of the blade, where 

 it encircles the stem, a curious little body which 

 the farmers with rougli eloquence have agreed 

 to describe as a " flax seed." If you watch the 



