11 
late Judge Hickock of Lansingburgh, N. Y., in a communication 
to the Board of Agriculture in the year 1823, and published in 
the memoirs, (vol. ii., page 169,) says, “a respectable and ob- 
serving farmer of this town, Col. James Brookins, has informed 
me, that on his first hearing of the alarm on Long Island, in the 
year 1786, (doubtless, 1776 is intended,) and many years before 
its ravages were complained of in this part of the country, he de- 
tected the same insect, upon examining the wheat growing on his 
farm in his town.” If this insect, observed by Col. Brookins in 
1776, was the genuine destructor, it is a little singular that to be- 
tray its real character, it patiently awaited some fourteen years, 
to be reinforced by its kindred from Long Island, who reached it 
by regular advances made year after year—that on their arrival, 
and not till then, it acquired the skill and courage to go forth and 
lay waste the crops through all this section of country for several 
successive years. The strong probability is, that it was some 
other insect which was found by Col. Brookins. 
Its Civil History and Bibliography. 
We now proceed to adduce such facts as we have been able to 
collect, respecting the devastations of this insect in different years, 
or in other words, to trace out with as much precision as the data 
before us will enable us to do, its civil history, from the period of 
its first appearance, down to the present time; and in connection 
with this, to notice the different memoirs and other papers of va- 
lue that have been published respecting it, so far as we have had 
an opportunity of becoming acquainted with them. 
Anterior to the revolutionary war, the Hessian fly was unknown 
in this country. No allusion to an insect of this kind has been 
found in any American work, or in the journal of any foreign tra- 
veler, nor since its appearance has it been intimated that any of 
our citizens had ever observed it previous to that time. 
All accounts concur in stating that its first appearance was up- 
on Staten Island, and the west end of Long Island. There issome 
discrepancy between different writers, as to the particular year in 
which it was first observed. Dr. Mitchell states (Encyc. Britan.) 
that “ it was first discovered in the year 1776.” The ravages of 
