332 
[Assembly 
tirely. Notices of it in the magazines and newspapers become 
more rare, and it was evidently ceasing to be regarded with that 
intense solicitude which it had hitherto excited. It was, however, 
with unabated vigor, continuing its progress southward. A letter 
from Prospect Hill, Delaware, dated June 12th, 1792, (Carey’s Mu¬ 
seum, vol. xi. p. 301,) states that the fly arrived there “in prodi¬ 
gious clouds,” about the middle of the preceding September. It 
describes the place were eggs were deposited on the young wheat, 
the growth of the worm, and the perishing of all the plants, except 
those growing upon a rich soil, and adds further testimony in favor 
of the Underhill wheat. 
In 1797, Dr. Isaac Chapman, of Bucks county, Pa., prepared one 
of the best accounts of this species that has ever appeared, contain¬ 
ing the details of his own careful observations upon the insect and 
the time of its appearance in its different stages. These observa¬ 
tions led him to recommend as the most certain safeguards against 
the fall attack, late sowing, and against the spring attack, a quick 
vigorous growth, to be obtained by procuring southern seed and 
sowing it on a rich, elevated and dry soil. His paper is published 
in the fifth volume of the Memoirs of the Philadelphia Society for 
promoting Agriculture, a volume which we regret having been un¬ 
able to find in either of the largest libraries of this State. We are 
therefore obliged to depend for its contents upon second hand ac¬ 
counts. Dr. C. states that the fly was this year found upon the 
west side of the Alleghany mountains. 
The eighth volume of the Fncyclopcedia 'Britannica, published 
this year, gives (pages 4S9-495) an extended article under the head 
Mission Fly, consisting chiefly of a summary of the several docu¬ 
ments laid before the privy council during their investigations. 
In Dr. B. S. Barton’s Fragments of the Natural History of Penn¬ 
sylvania, issued in 1799, the author announces (p. 23) his intention 
of publishing “a memoir upon that destructive insect called the 
Hessian fly.” It is probable that whatever communications were 
addressed to the committee of the Philosophical Society, had been 
consigned to his hands. We are not aware that the promised me¬ 
moir ever appeared. 
