OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 51 



judgement on the subject. This judgement was after 

 all, however, very imperfect. As Sir Joseph Banks had 

 never seen the Hessian fly, nor was it described in any 

 entomological system, he called for facts respecting its 

 nature, propagation, and economy, which could be had 

 only from America. These were obtained as speedily 

 as possible, and consist of numerous letters from indivi- 

 duals ; essays from magazines ; the reports of the Bri- 

 tish minister there, &c. &c. One would have supposed 

 that from these statements, many of them drawn up by 

 farmers who had lost entire crops by the insect, which 

 they profess to have examined in every stage, the requi- 

 site information might have been acquired. So far how- 

 ever was this from being the case, that many of the wri- 

 ters seem ignorant whether the insect be a moth, a fly, 

 or what they term a bug. And though from the con- 

 current testimony of several its being a two-winged fly 

 seemed pretty accurately ascertained, no intelligible de- 

 scription is given, from which any naturalist can infer to 

 what genus it belongs, or whether it is a known species. 

 With regard to the history of its propagation and eco- 

 nomy the statements were so various and contradictory, 

 that though he had such a mass of materials before him, 

 Sir Joseph Banks was unable to reach any satisfactory 

 conclusion. 



Nothing can more incontrovertibly demonstrate the im- 

 portance of studying Entomology as a science than this 

 fact. Those observations, to which thousands of un- 

 scientific sufferers proved themselves incompetent, would 

 have been readily made by one entomologist well versed 

 in his science. He would at once have determined the 

 order and genus of the insect, and whether it was a 



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