268 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



little visiters were emigrants from the neighbouring 

 hop-grounds.'* 



The aphides upon which they prey, in like manner 

 shift their quarters ; and amongst other instances on 

 record, White informs us that about three o'clock in 

 the afternoon of the 1st of August, 1785, the people 

 of the village of Selborne were surprised by a shower 

 of aphides which fell in those parts. Persons who 

 walked in the street at this time found themselves 

 covered with them, and they settled in such numbers 

 in the gardens and on the hedges as to blacken 

 every leaf Mr White's annuals were thus all dis- 

 coloured with them, and the stalks of a bed of onions 

 were quite coated over for six days afterwards. These 

 swarms, he remarks, were then no doubt in a state 

 of emigration, and might have come from the great 

 hop- plantations of Kent and Sussex, the wind being 

 all that day in the east. They were observed at the 

 same time in great clouds about Farnham, and all 

 along the vale from Farnham to Alton, t It would 

 have been well if the particular species had been as- 

 certained, so as to make sure whether they belonged 

 to the hop-fly {Aphis humuli). White, however, was 

 not so minutely acquainted with insects as to notice 

 the difference of species ; but this could scarcely be 

 the case with Kirby, whose knowledge of the science 

 is second, we believe, to that of no living naturalist, 

 yet he leaves us equall}' in the dark, when he says, 

 * A similar emigration of these flies I once witnessed, 

 to my great annoyance, when travelling later in the 

 year in the Isle of Ely. The air was so full of them, 

 that they were incessantly flying into my eyes, nos- 

 trils, &.C, and my clothes were covered by them ; 

 and in 1814, in the autumn, the aphides were so 

 abundant for a few days in the vicinity of Ipswich, as 



* Introduction, ii, 8 ; and i, 264, 

 t Natural History of Selborne, ii, 101. 



