258 [Senate 
anterior even to the date when the Hessian fly was first observed in 
America. 
In 1795, as we are informed by Mr. Marsham, in a paper read be¬ 
fore the Linnaean Society, London, and published in their Transac¬ 
tions, vol. iii. p. 142, towards the end of July, Mr. Long had observed 
an insect that threatened to do much mischief to the wheat crops, 
attacking one or more of the grains in an ear, and causing the chaff 
of these grains to become yellow or ripe, whilst the remainder of the 
head was still green. Mr. Marsham, on opening the chaff of these 
grains, found an orange-colored powder, and in many of them one or 
two very minute yellowish-white or deep yellow larvae, the grain it¬ 
self appearing to be a little shrunk. Mr. Markwick, of Sussex, also 
observed the same larvae in his wheat, the forepart of August, but 
was confident they had done no injury to it. The same larvaj were 
also noticed by Mr. Kirby, this year, in Suffolk. 
In a subsequent paper from Mr. Marsham (Trans. Lin. Soc. vol. 
iv. p. 224), we are informed that Mr. Markwick, July 12,1797, saw 
the flies themselves, at rest upon the heads of the wheat, and also a 
few of the larvae within the flowers ; and that awhile later in the sea¬ 
son the fly appeared reduced in numbers, whilst the larvae had be¬ 
come much more abundant. From heads of the wheat enclosed in a 
flowerpot, he reared the fly, and also its parasite ; the fly thus ob¬ 
tained having “ spotted wings,” a fact which we shall revert to here¬ 
after. 
Following this account is an excellent article (p. 230) by the Rev. 
William Kirby, who has since become so well known by his various 
writings upon entomology. Mr. Kirby here gives a scientific de¬ 
scription of the wheat-fly, bestowing upon it the specific name tritici , 
by which it has been definitely distinguished by all subsequent wri¬ 
ters, and correctly referring it to the genus Tipula of Linnmus, a genus 
which, in consequence of the vast number of species afterwards 
discovered to be comprised under it, naturalists have since found it 
necessary to subdivide ; and the species in question at this day falls 
within that group to which the name Cccidomyia was given by La- 
treille—an arrangement concurred in by Mr. Kirby himself in his 
communication in Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History, vol. i. p. 
227 ; and which I note thus particularly, as by most writers in our 
