‘ 
92 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 
founded.! That there was sufficient cause for apprehension, should i% 
have so turned out, what I have formerly stated concerning the latter insect, 
and the additional facts which I shall now adduce, will amply show. 
The rayages of the animal just alluded to, which was first noticed in 
1776, and received its name from an erroneous idea that it was carried by 
the Hessian troops in their straw from Germany, were at one time so 
universal as to threaten, where it appeared, the total abolition of the cul- 
ture of wheat; though the injury which it now occasions is much less 
than at first. It commences its depredations in) autumn, as soon as the 
plant begins to appear above ground, when it devours the leaf and stem 
with equal voracity until stopped by the frost. When the return of spring 
brings a milder temperature the fly appears again, and deposits its eggs in 
the heart of the main stems, which it perforates, and so weakens, that when 
the ear begins to grow heavy, and is about to go into the milky state, they 
break down and perish. All the crops, as far as it extended its flight, fell 
before this ravager. It first showed itself in Long Island, from whence it 
proceeded inland at about the rate of fifteen or twenty miles annually, and 
by the year 1789 had reached 200 miles from its original station. I must 
observe, however, that some accounts state its progress at first to have 
been very slow, at the rate only of seven miles per annum, and the damage 
inconsiderable ; and that the wheat crops were not materially injured by 
it before the year 1788. Though these insect hordes traverse such a 
tract of country in the course of the year, their flights are not more than 
five or six feet at a time. Nothing intercepts them in their destructive 
career, neither mountains nor the broadest rivers. They were seen to 
cross the Delaware like a cloud. The numbers of this fly were so great, 
that in wheat-harvest the houses swarmed with them, to the extreme 
annoyance of the inhabitants. They filled every plate or vessel that was 
in use ; and five hundred were counted in a single glass tumbler exposed 
to them a few minutes with a little beer in it.2 
America suffers also in its wheat and maize from the attack of an insect 
of a different order ; which, for what reason I know not, is called the 
chintz bug-fly. It appears to be apterous, and is said in scent and colour 
to resemble the bed-bug. They travel in immense columns from field to 
field, like locusts, destroying every thing as they proceed ; but their injuries 
are confined to the states south of the 40th degree of north latitude.$ 
“rom this account the depredator here noticed should belong to the 
1 Linn. Trans. ii. 76—80. 
® Eneycloped. Britann. viii. 489—495. Though the ravages of the Hessian fly in 
the United States have not been so extensive of late, much injury is still occasionally 
suffered from it, as stated by Mr. Say, who described it under the name of Cecido- 
myia destructor, and as I learn from B. C. Herrick, Esq. of New Haven, Connecti- 
cut, who has taken great pains to ascertain the metamorphosis and economy of this 
insect; and either this or an allied species deseried by M. Kullar, destroyed a large 
proportion of the wheat crops in Hungary in 1833, and extended itself also to 
France, Dr. Hammerschmidt, who has also given an account of this insect, has 
called it Cecidomyia tritici, supposing it to be the same with the insect described by 
Mr. Marsham and Mr. Kirby; but as the mischief done by the larva of the former 
is caused by its eating into the stem and weakening the whole plant, while the 
latter is injurious by destroying the pollen of the blossom, the two insects are evi~ 
dently very distinct, as indeed their differents colour proves,—Kllar on Ins, injurious 
to Gardeners, &e. 118, 
S Young’s Annals of Aariculture, xi, 471. 
