IMPERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 9 



ilays after. These armies, he observes, were then, no 

 doubt, in a state of emigration, and shifting- their quar- 

 ters; and n'igltt nave come from tlie great hop-planta- 

 tions of Kent or Sussex, the wind being all ihat 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 ^. 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, nostrils, &c. ; and my clothes were 

 covered by them. And in 1814, in the autumn, tlie 

 Aphides were so abundant for a few days in the vici- 

 nity of Ipswich, as to be noticed with surprise by tbe 

 most incurious observers. 



As the locust-eating thrush (lurdus grj/Hrcorus, L.) 

 accompanies the locusts, so the Coccineiiae seem to pur- 

 sue the Aphides; for I know no other reason to as- 

 sign for the vast number that are sometimes, especially 

 in the autumn, to be met with on the sea-coast or the 

 banks of large rivers. Many years ago, those of the 

 Humber were so thickly strewed with the common 

 Lady-bird (C septempunctaia, L.), that it was difncult 

 to avoid treading upon them. Some years afterwards 

 I noticed a mixture of species, collected in vast num- 

 bers, on the sand-hills on the sea-shore, at the north- 

 west extremity of Norfolk. My friend, the Rev. Peter 

 Lathbury, made long since a similar observation at 

 Orford, on the Suffolk coast ; and about live or six 

 years ago they covered the cliffs, as I have before re- 

 marked'', of all the watering-places on the Kentish and 



''Nat. Hist. 'i\.\0\. " Vol. I. 2d Ed. 2Q1. 



