STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
771 
MIDGE. FBY• HATE THE W1HGS A CR0S8-VEIHLET T 
That this subject might be more conclusively determined, M. 
Amyot wrote to me, requesting me to send him specimens of our 
insect. But his letters failed to reach me, and I remained wholly 
ignorant of the matter above stated, till the year 1855, when tid¬ 
ings of them and of M. Amyot’s desire of specimens from this 
country came to me through my valued friend and correspondent, 
Dr. Signoret. Not knowing the ground bn which M. Amyot had 
distrusted the correctness of my determination and inferring it 
most probably to be on the general principle that the insects of 
the two continents are different, and that it was not to be sup¬ 
posed that such a small delicate fly as this could make its way 
across the Atlantic, I aimed to send from my almost exhausted 
supply, specimens which would most readily show the facies or 
general aspect of this insect. I accordingly forwarded to Dr. 
Signoret for him two of my best displayed examples, glued upon 
small pieces of card; though I am now aware it would have been 
better had I sent him specimens on pins, that he might examine 
their wings by transmitted instead of reflected light. 
The result of M. Amyot’s examination of these specimens he 
communicated to the Entomological Society at its meeting 
November 14th, 1855 (Bulletins page civ,) from which I make 
the following extract: 
“ I have submitted these specimens to a most scrupulous ex¬ 
amination ; I have compared them with those which I gave four 
years ago to the Paris Museum of Natural History and which M. 
H. Lucas has had the care to preserve perfectly in alcohol. They 
have been placed side by side under the microscope. M. Lucas 
and I have noticed them with the closest possible attention, and 
all our doubts have hereupon vanished as to the real identity of 
the American species with ours. M. Asa Fitch therefore wag 
not mistaken. This terrible plague of the crops in America hag 
really come from Europe; it is a gift which the old world has 
unfortunately made to the new, with civilization. 
“ The difficulties which I saw in recognizing the identity in 
question arose from the figure of the wings given by M. Fitch, 
particularly from the transverse nervure, which in that figure 
unites what I have called the post-costal nervure to the side. It 
is in this manner that this difficulty disappears — this transverse 
nervure does not exist in nature. M. Fitch must have been mis¬ 
led, we think, by a mere indication; there is a slight elbow to the 
