257 
No. 105.] 
From this it would appear that the effects produced by the wheat-fly 
had been known for some time to the farmers of England, though 
imputed by them to a wrong cause. He says, u What the farmers 
call the yellows in wheat, and which they consider as a kind of 
mildew, is in fact occasioned by a small yellow fly with blue wings, 
about the size of a gnat. This blows in the ear of the corn, and 
produces a worm, almost invisible to the naked eye ; but being seen 
through a pocket microscope, it appears a large yellow maggot, of 
the color and gloss of amber, and is so prolific that I last week dis¬ 
tinctly counted forty-one living yellow maggots in the husk of one 
single grain of wheat — a number sufficient to eat up and destroy the 
corn in a whole ear. * * * One of these yellow flies 
laid at least eight or ten eggs of an oblong shape on my thumb, only 
while carrying by the wing across three or four ridges.” 
It was several years subsequent to this date, that the accounts of 
the appalling ravages of the Hessian fly among the wheat crops of 
America reached Europe ; and as this fly was universally believed to 
have been derived from the old world, extensive and careful exami¬ 
nations of the grain fields there were made to detect it, that its habits 
might be learned, and means devised for preventing its becoming 
such a scourge as it was to this country. These investigations, con¬ 
ducted often at the public expense, and by men whose acquirements 
peculiarly fitted them for such a work, resulted in a confident an¬ 
nouncement, which received general credence for a long series of 
years, that the Hessian fly did not exist in Europe ; yet in their 
course, several other species of insects injurious to the cultivated 
grains of that continent were discovered, and the wheat-fly received 
a particular examination. Mr. Curtis, generally so accurate in his 
statements, says that it was first discovered at this time ; but the ac¬ 
count already given from Mr. Gullet, shows that it was known in 
England at least twenty-five years earlier than Mr. C. supposes, and 
fluid juices produce a yellow slain, without any glossiness. Every one accustomed to 
the handling of insects, will at once recognize the character in question as applying 
admirably to some small species of moth; and the <e Committee on Husbandry” of the 
Society, in their remarks at the close of Col. Carter’s paper, are doubtless correct in 
their statement, that these insects " appear to be of the same kind with those that do 
the like mischief in Europe, which a gentleman of Angumois describes to Mr. Du- 
liamel,” and which have since become so well known as the “Augnmois grain-moth,” 
described by the naturalist Olivier under the technical name of Alucita ccrealella. 
[Senate, No. 105. J 
17 
