In September, 1806, I passed through this town on a journey to Vermont. While I was here, President Fitch showed me an insect, about an inch in length, of a brown colour tinged with orange, with two antennæ, or feelers, not unlike a rosebug in form, but in every respect handsomer. This insect came out of a tea-table, made of the boards of an apple tree, and belonging to Mr. Putnam, one of the inhabitants, and a son of the Hon. Major General Putnam, late of Brooklyn in Connecticut.

'I went with President Fitch to Mr. Putnam's to examine the spot, whence the insect had emerged into light. We measured the cavity, and found it about two inches in length, nearly horizontal, and inclining upwards very little, except at the mouth. Between the hole and

the outside of the leaf of the table there were forty grains of the wood. President Fitch supposed, with what I thought a moderate estimate, that the saw-mill and the cabinet-maker had cut off at least as many as thirteen more; making sixty in the whole. The tree had, therefore, been growing sixty years from the time when the egg was deposited in it, out of which the insect was produced. How long a period had intervened, between the day in which the apple tree was cut down and that in which the table was purchased by Mr. Putnam, is unknown. It had been in his possession twenty years. Of course, eighty years had elapsed between the laying of the egg and the birth of the insect.

'After its birth it was placed under a tumbler, and attempts were made, by offering it for sustenance wood of the apple tree, and bread, to prolong its life. It ate a small quantity of the bread; but, either from want of more proper food, or from being lodged in too cold a temperature, or from some other cause, it died within a few days. My own acquaintance with entomology is so limited, that I know not whether the observations which I am about to make may not seem idle, and be really superfluous, to persons acquainted with this branch of natural history. But, I confess, the fact opened to me a train of thoughts, in some measure interesting. I had often wondered at many things relative to this class of beings, and had often heard men of respectable understanding express their wonder and their doubts concerning the same things particularly, the origin of many new tribes of insects, which within the last forty years had visited these States (tribes unknown even to the oldest men living, and therefore styled new); the periods intervening between the appearance and disappearance of other tribes, which are well known; for example, the locust; the apparently absolute disappearance of still other tribes; together with several other things of a similar nature.

'I had long been satisfied of the vivacious nature of seeds. Here I was presented with full proof of the same nature in the eggs of insects. The egg, from which this insect sprang, was unquestionably deposited eighty years before its appearance in a living form. Sixty of these years it existed in the tree, where it was laid. Perhaps it may be more unobjectionably said, that eighty years elapsed from the time, when the cause of its future animation was lodged in the tree, to the commencement of that animation. What was true of this insect, is in

all probability true of many other species. It ceases, then, to be strange, that various tribes appear once only during the life of man; or during the existence of several generations. Every such tribe must ordinarily be new to the existing generation, because no account of its appearance has been recorded. The want of a regular cause of their existence cannot any longer be alleged, even with plausibility; nor the doctrine of equivocal generation be maintained, even on the unsolid ground of inexplicableness. The appearance, in 1770, of the palmerworm, after an interval of thirty years, ceases to be an object of wonder; nor can we be surprised, that it has not appeared again, although a longer period has elapsed. There can be nothing perplexing in the periods of the locust; nor any further necessity of inquiring, whence new species of insects are derived, or what has become of those which are apparently extinct.

'It is here proved, that in the proper situation, always known, and selected by the insect for its eggs, and by the eruca for its chrysalis, the cause of animation may continue perfect through an indefinite period; while yet its operations are suspended. There may be eggs, as well as seeds, which may contain, uninjured, the principle of future life for several hundreds, or thousands, of years. Yet, afterwards, the one by a change of circumstances may produce a living animal, as the other a living plant.

It will be admitted, that every such being was created for ends, which it was fitted to accomplish. It must also be admitted, that, if all insects were to generate yearly, they would convert the earth into a desert. The Author of the world, therefore, while he has fitted them to fulfil the ends of their being, has subjected them to this slow and interrupted propagation, that they might not desolate the globe. The palmer-worm, were it to appear annually, would, within a few years, empty New England of its inhabitants; partly by destroying the means of their subsistence, and partly by spreading diseases, which would spring from the putrefaction of its innumerable millions. Who can fail to admire the wisdom and goodness displayed in this conduct of Providence !-Vol. ii. p. 379.

The locust appears regularly every seventeenth year; so Kalm also was assured; they are then very numerous, but in the intervening years are only seen or heard single in the woods. This insect, however, is not injurious in America, where it attacks only some of the forest trees. It differs, Dr. Dwight says, essentially in its qualitics from that of the east. Is it a distinct species or has it not yet learnt the great advantages which agriculture produces to the locust nation?-for the change which man produces wherever he takes possession of the earth as his inheritance and subdues it, extends to its inferior tenants, and he feels to his cost how insects and vermin adapt their habits of life to his. If what Dr. Dwight describes be the true locust, the Americans will not always find it so harmless. Once only in his life he remembered the palmer-worm. It came in infinite num

bers,

bers, marching from west to east; walls and fences did not impede its progress, but the army was stopt by plowing trenches before it; the small particles of earth yielding to their feet as they attempted to climb the side. The multitudes which died in these trenches infected the air, and were believed in many places to produce a dangerous fever. The Hessian fly is supposed to have been an importation, because it first appeared in a field of wheat on or near the Hessian encampment opposite New York. We know not whether the Germans recognize it as one of the plagues of their country, or if it be the resurrection of some buried species which has in evil hour found its way to the light. It travels at the rate of twenty miles a year, and it has been so destructive that the cultivation of wheat in Connecticut has been in a great measure discontinued, in consequence of its ravages. It has indeed been found impossible longer to cultivate the particular sort of wheat which was best fitted for the soil and climate of New England, and furnished also the best bread. This species is actually lost out of the country,' and whenever wheat is sown, the fly multiplies with it, till, in a few years, it becomes numerous enough to destroy the crop. Nothing,' says the author, who has the merit of looking at all things religiously, nothing can more strongly exhibit the dependence, or the littleness of man,nor any thing more forcibly display the ease with which his Maker punishes his transgressions. The canker-worm, the caterpillar, the palmer-worm, and the locust-these and their compeers have in every age been the army of God, which has humbled the pride, frustrated the designs, and annihilated the hopes of man. The Hessian fly is less than a gnat, and when settled in its usual manner on the ground is commonly invisible, being seen only as it rises in small clouds immediately before your steps. It is feeble and helpless also in the extreme: defenceless against the least enemy, and crushed by the most delicate touch. Yet for many years it has taxed this country annually more perhaps than a million of dollars.'

Josselyn observes that the pease in America were the best in the world, and that during his eight years' residence he never saw, or heard of one that was worm eaten. The Bruchus pisi, or pease beetle, however, has since his time conquered the country. It was first noticed in Pennsylvania. The Swedes, who were the original colonists there, had every man his field of pease the culture became hopeless after the legislature offered rewards for destroying the purple daw, as a maize thief; and it was discovered, when too late, that this bird had kept down the numbers of an insect far more injurious than itself. Kalm, the Linnæan traveller, had very nearly introduced them into

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Sweden.

Sweden. He took home with him some sweet pease, which were fresh and green when he packed them in America; but on opening them at Stockholm, he found them all hollow, and the head of an insect peeping out of each: some of the beetles even crept out, but he hastily shut the packet. I own,' says he, that when I first perceived them, I was more frightened than I should have been at the sight of a viper; for I had at once a full view of the whole damage which my dear country would have suffered, if only two or three of these noxious insects had escaped. The posterity of many families, and even the inhabitants of whole provinces, would have had sufficient reason to detest me as the cause of so great a calamity.'-It appears, however, from Linnæus that the creature has been imported into the south of Europe.

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A great interchange of incommodities is unwittingly carried on wherever commerce extends. The West Indian cockroach has found its way to the foot of Skiddaw; and we have seen the huge nest of the American wasp suspended from trees in Cumberland. Josselyn, in his first visit to New England, took one of these nests for a fruit, supposing it to be a pine-apple plated with scales. "It was as big,' he says, as the crown of a woman's hat. I made bold to step unto it with an intent to have gathered it: no sooner had I toucht it but hundreds of wasps were about me.' The same old author gives a catalogue of such plants as had in his time sprung up since the English planted and kept cattle in New England. They were two-and-twenty in number. The common nettle was the first which the settlers noticed; and the plantain was called by the Indians, English man's foot, as if it sprung from their footsteps. The insect which destroys the apple trees comes to us from America, and is now travelling toward the interior of England as steadily, though not so fast, as the Hessian fly. Another destructive insect has within a few years attacked the fruit trees in New England, more especially the Morello cherry, which it has nearly exterminated; and the plum. Insects of this kind are not observed till their ravages excite attention. They then emerge into notice like the hordes of barbarians at the breaking up of the Roman empire, Goths, Vandals, Alans, Heruls, Huns, Bulgarians, &c. none of which were heard of till they became numerous enough to be the terror and the scourge of the civilized world. If the statements may be relied on that there is in one part of Louisiana a fly the sting of which is fatal to horses, and in Persia a bug whose bite is death to the traveller, it would seem that man has far more formidable enemies in the insect creation than he has ever yet contended with. It is however apparently so inconsistent with what we know of the order of creation, that such powers of destruction should be

vested in creatures against which no protection can be found either in courage or in foresight, that we must look for further testimony before we can implicitly give credit to it. Were the common fly armed with a mortal sting, neither fire nor flood would be needed to exterminate the human race.

Dr. Dwight has a theory that the diseases which are commonly imputed to stagnant waters and marsh miasmata, are produced by animalcular putrefaction. The reasons which he assigns are given in his own words, because they may fitly be made the subject of experiment.

A number of years since, I put a quantity of ground pepper into a tumbler of water; and a few days afterwards, found a thin scum spread over the surface. Within a few days more, I perceived, on examining this scum with a microscope, that it exhibited an immense number of living animalcules. Two or three days after, examining the same scum again, I found not the least appearance of life. After another short period, the scum was replenished with living beings again; and, after another, became totally destitute of them. This alternate process continued until the water became so fœtid as to forbid a further examination. The conclusion which I drew from these facts was, that the first race of animalcules, having laid their eggs, died, and were succeeded in a short time by a second, and these by a third.

The foetor, which arose from the putrefaction of these ephemeral beings, differed in one respect from that which is produced by the decay of larger animals. Although it was perceptible at a small distance only, and perhaps less loathsome than the smell of a corrupted carcass, it was far more suffocating. When the effluvia were received into the lungs, it seemed as if nature gave way, and was preparing to sink under the impression. A pungency, entirely peculiar, accompanied the smell, and appeared to lessen the vis vitæ in a manner different from any thing which I had ever experienced before.

The scum, which covered this pepper-water, was in appearance the same with that which in hot seasons is sometimes seen on standing waters, and abounds on those marshes exposed to the sun. To the production, and still more to the sustenance of the animalcules, vegetable putrefaction seems to be necessary, or at least concomitant; the nidus, perhaps, in which the animalculine existence is formed, or the pabulum by which it is supported.

Whatever instrumentality vegetable putrefaction may have, I am inclined to suspect, for several reasons, that animalculine putrefaction is the immediate cause of those diseases, whatever they are, which are usually attributed to standing waters. It will, I believe, be found universally, that no such disease is ever derived from any standing waters, which are not to a considerable extent covered with a scum; and perhaps most, if not all of those which have this covering, will be found unhealthy. The New-England lakes, so far as I have observed, are universally free, even from the thinnest pellicle of this nature, are pure potable water, are supplied almost wholly by subjacent springs, and are,

therefore,