No. 150.] 
319 
destructor. More of the perfect insects were evolved in the course 
of the month, one of which deposited eggs like those of the Hes¬ 
sian fly. In letters, dated Mahon, April 8 and 21, Mr. D. sent me 
five of the insects, and several of the pupa;. They arrived in safe¬ 
ty, and after a careful examination, I saw no good reason to doubt 
the identity of this insect with the Hessian fly. The Mahor.ese as¬ 
serted that the insect had been there from time immemorial, and 
often did great damage both there and in Spain.” And further, 
u on the 28th of April, 1834, Mr. D. collected from a wheat field 
just without the walls of Toulon, in France, several pupa: and one 
larva like those before obtained. On the 4th of June, 1834, he ob¬ 
tained similar pupa: from a wheat field near Naples.” We doubt 
whether there was living, at that day, two persons better qualified 
to determine the identity of these insects with the Hessian fly, than 
Messrs. Herrick and Dana. Testimony from such a source needs 
no comment. 
Finally, the year previous to that in which Mr. Dana made the 
above examination, it appears that the wheat crops in some parts of 
Germany, were seriously injured by an insect which was generally 
regarded as the Hessian fly. M. Kdllar, of Vienna, in his treatise 
on injurious insects, (London, 1840, p. 119,) relates that in the au¬ 
tumn of 1843, complaints were made that the wheat on the estates 
of his imperial highness, the Archduke Charles, at Altenburg, in 
Hungary, had been considerably injured by an unknown insect, of 
which the following account was forwarded to the archducal office. 
“ Till the end of May, the wheat was in excellent condition, but 
about the commencement of June, the ears began to hang down, 
and the stem to bend, and in a few days patches appeared in differ¬ 
ent parts of the fields which were of rather poorer soil than the 
others, with the plants entangled and matted together, as though 
lodged by heavy rains.More than two-thirds of the 
straw was lodged in less than a week ; and the heavy rains which 
fell in the latter half of June, so fully completed the work of de¬ 
struction, that the wheat fields looked as if herds of cattle had gone 
over them. The cause of this damage was sought for, and we soon 
discovered at the crown of the root of each of the wheat plants, or 
at the first joint, within the sheath of the leaf, whole clusters of 
