324 [Assembly 
1776 is intended,) and many years before its ravages were complain¬ 
ed of in this part of the country, he detected the same insect, upon 
examining the wheat growing on his farm in this town.” If this 
insect, observed by Col. Brookins in 1776, was the genuine destruc¬ 
tor , it is a little singular that to betray its real character, it patient¬ 
ly awaited some fourteen 3 ears, to be reinforced by its kindred fiom 
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, ihe strong proba¬ 
bility 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 devastation 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 value 
that have been published respecting it, so far as we have had an op¬ 
portunity 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 ir.i any American work, or ii^ the journal of any foreign tra¬ 
veller, nor since its appearance has it been intimated that any ot 
our citizens had ever observed it previous to that tilne. 
All accounts concur in stating that its first appearance was up¬ 
on Staten Island, and the west end of Long Island. There is some 
discrepancy between different writers, as to the particular year in 
which it was first observed. Dr. Mitchell states ( Encyc . Britann.) 
that “it was first discovered in the year 1776.” Ihe ravages ot 
the insect, however, are so much more conspicuous and liable to 
attract attention from the broken and tangled condition of the 
straw as it approaches maturity in June, than they are when a por¬ 
tion of the young shoots are discolored and withered in October, 
that there can be little doubt but it would first be observed Rt the 
